


A Little Problem

by BuckyWithTheGoodHair86



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: All Kinds Of Sweet Adorableness, Avengers Movie Night, Baseball, Basically Lots Of Feels And Fluff Okay?, Bedtime Stories, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cardboard Boxes, Cooking Lessons, Crayons, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Dinosaur Pajamas, Domestic Fluff, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Home Improvement Shows, Hot Chocolate, Kid Steve Rogers, Legos, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Papa Bear Bucky Barnes, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Tony Stark, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Sugar High - Freeform, Team as Family, Teddy Bears, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 65,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23250517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckyWithTheGoodHair86/pseuds/BuckyWithTheGoodHair86
Summary: Life in Avengers Tower changes one day when a mission goes sideways and the team comes home with a nine-year-old Steve Rogers instead of their resident super-soldier. Until this gets fixed, they're going to have to make some adjustments, but Sam can dust off his old Lego skills, Natasha tells a decent bedtime story, and Bucky has a soft, cuddly paternal side that nobody really saw coming. And Tony is going to catch the warm fuzzy feelings whether he wants to or not. Because little Steve is awfully cute.
Comments: 192
Kudos: 348





	1. A Little Guy In A Big New World

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So, I've been holding on to this Little Steve story for a while, intending to publish it after my Norseman's Cube story was over, but I figured, people are stuck at home these days and could maybe use something nice and fluffy, so here we go. I've got all the fluff for you. (For those of you following Norseman's Cube, don't worry, it's still posting on schedule.)
> 
> This story is set not too long after Age of Ultron, with a slight AU twist on the ending in that they all still live in the Tower, not the new compound, and Thor hasn't left yet. Also, Bucky is here. Because Bucky just makes the story better, and I wanted him here. He came back at some point not long after Winter Soldier and is, like, 3/4 of the way recovered.
> 
> So, here we go! Time for the adventures of the Avengers and Kid Steve! (Who, if I may say so myself, is a heckin' cute kid.)

* * *

A roar shook the walls of the building—distant, but not distant enough. Another one of the creatures was out there, and Steve had no idea where they were coming from. It was like they appeared out of thin air. No one knew what they were either—if they were aliens, they were a kind Thor had never seen. The best anyone had come up with was some sort of dragon-fish hybrid, though they flew (Or hovered, maybe? They didn't have wings.), had crests of feathers behind their heads, and spat poison. They ranged in size from large crocodile to small whale. Their scales and feathers came in a range of soft jewel tones, and they were graceful and lithe when they moved, and if not for the fact that they were destroying everything in sight and trying to eat everyone, they would have been beautiful.

Two of them were dead on the ground—no one knew what they were, but they were flesh and blood, and not immune to bullets, lightning or fire. Five were flying around somewhere, and Steve had sent Rhodey, Sam and Thor to try to keep them contained in the warehouse. Bucky and Clint were chasing one of them, and the shouts and gunfire Steve heard through the radio in his ear told him they were at least keeping it in sight.

Steve, Nat and Tony were looking for more of them—they were oddly silent for giant flying lizards. "You think they can go through walls?" Nat wondered.

"That would explain why they're so hard to track," Steve said.

"Or maybe they do just pop out of thin air," Tony said from behind them in a tone that made them both turn around. An opening in space was appearing in the air up by the ceiling, a glowing ring of burning orange light framing the opening and the creature's head that was coming through it. Steve took a moment to be impressed at the sight before flinging his shield straight into the creature's jaw. It hissed angrily and drew back, and the opening closed behind it, the light blinking out.

"Be advised, guys, these things _do_ just come out of thin air," Steve said into the radio, retrieving his shield. "Look for circles of glowing orange light that they come out of. Try to make them retreat back into the hole if you can." It was a testament to how weird their lives sometimes got that nobody's responses sounded surprised.

"Hey, uh, is anyone in the building seeing this?" Sam asked a minute later over the radio. "Anyone in the room with the purple one we killed earlier?"

"No," Steve replied. "What's up?"

"Well, I'm looking through the window, and I'm not seeing any orange light, but the monster is glowing green. Oh, crap, guys, it's moving! The injuries are closing up and it is definitely coming back to life!"

"On our way!" Steve said, and he, Nat and Tony took off running.

When they arrived in the room, the creature was still surrounded by spirals of glowing green light. It was slowly rising back into the air, moving its limbs gingerly, as if testing them out. The fatal wound in its head where Tony and Rhodey had dropped part of the ceiling on it was closing back up. Steve could actually see the flesh growing back over the exposed skull.

Nat and Tony immediately started firing, but Steve's attention was drawn to a movement back in the shadows. The figure of a man stood in the darkness, illuminated only by two small glowing circles of green around his wrists, the same color as the light swirling around the creature. "Guys, there's someone here!" he shouted. "Someone controlling the monster!" Steve hurled his shield at the figure, and the man stopped waving his arms at the creature and extended a hand in Steve's direction. A glowing circle of orange light appeared and kept the shield from making contact.

Protecting himself had cost him, though, and the green light around his wrists and the creature winked out, and the ground shuddered as the massive animal fell back to the ground. It groaned, gunshots rang out, and the creature was silent once more.

The figure took off, Steve, Tony and Nat in pursuit. Steve was closest, and nearly had the man in reach when he stopped and spun, his hands glowing green again. Steve was abruptly lifted up in the air, the green tendrils of light surrounding him now, and a pain like he hadn't felt since Project: Rebirth was rolling through his body. It didn't stop, agony coursing through his veins and whiting out his senses, and the last thing he was aware of was the sound of his shield clattering to the ground as it slipped from his hand.

* * *

Bucky and Clint had managed to take down the creature they were pursuing just as Wilson started yelling through the comms about one of the other ones coming back to life. Barton took one of his exploding arrows, jammed it into the dead animal's neck and set it off as he and Bucky ran. Severing the head should at least slow it down if this one decided to resurrect itself too.

They arrived just in time to see the light flare out around the floating half-alive creature, stumbling back slightly as it hit the ground with an earth-jarring crash. They joined Stark, Natasha and Steve in their pursuit of the man who was evidently in charge of these things. Bucky groaned. Weirdo portal-jumping aliens were bad enough—they had to have some kind of psycho magician controlling them too?

They caught up with them in time to see the man catch Steve in a swirl of green light, just like the one around the animal. Steve rose up in the air and started to scream, and Bucky picked up the pace, raising his gun and taking aim at the man. Steve screamed even louder, and something in the pitch of his voice drew Bucky's eyes away from his target and back up to his friend. His voice was higher than it should have been, and he was curled up awfully small against the pain and…Holy Hannah, he wasn't just curling up tightly, he actually _was_ smaller!

Bucky pulled his eyes back to the man and took aim, sensing Natasha doing the same beside him and hearing the sound of Stark's repulsors firing up. The man waved his arms and the glowing ball of light and Steve came crashing down, flying back through the air and barreling into the three of them and sending them to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw the man vanish in a blink of orange light.

They disentangled themselves from the heap they'd landed in as Barton rushed over. Steve was on top of the pile, and while it looked like the rest of them had broken his fall, he was _way_ too small and light. Bucky put his hand on Steve's arm and Steve's eyes snapped open and he yelped and backed away, falling to the floor as he rolled off of Bucky's chest and bounced off Stark's legs. He hit the floor and scrabbled away until he backed into a nearby wall, hampered in his movements by the uniform that was far too big for him.

"What's going on?" Steve demanded in a high, frightened voice.

"What the hell?" Barton asked, staring wide-eyed at Steve. Bucky could only nod in agreement. Steve wasn't just small, he was…This was a Steve Bucky hadn't seen in nearly a century. A Steve who was just…He was just a _kid_.

"Cap?" Stark said, getting to his feet first and stepping toward him. "Are you okay?"

Steve flinched back against the wall and Stark stopped moving. "What's going on?" Steve demanded again. "Who are you?"

"It's okay. It's us. Are you alright?" Nat asked.

Steve just pulled back farther, shaking his head slowly. "I don't understand," he said. "What's going on? Where am I?"

Bucky got up and stepped forward slowly, his hands up to show they were empty. He nodded at Nat and Stark to take a few steps back. "It's okay, Steve," he said, stopping a few feet away and getting down on his knees so he was closer to eye-level with his tiny friend. "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Steve was staring at him warily, only looking mildly comforted by this statement. "How do you know my name?" he whispered.

That was _not_ what Bucky wanted to hear, but he kept smiling. "It's okay," he said again. "You're safe. Everything's gonna be okay." He tilted his head a little and caught Steve's wide eyes. "I'm not gonna hurt you," he said calmly. "Do you believe me?" There was an awful lot going on and an awful lot to figure out, but the first thing they needed to do was calm Steve down.

Steve studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Bucky's smile widened. "Good. That's good. Now, I know you're really confused, and kind of scared right now. I know you have a lot of questions, and I promise I will answer them for you. But can I ask you one more thing first?"

Steve nodded.

"How old are you?" Bucky asked. There was just a chance that whatever Mr. Glowy-Hands had done to Steve had just shrunk him, and his head was okay but just kind of scrambled right now. Not a great chance, but he had to check.

"Nine," Steve said softly.

Well, crap. Not unexpected, but still. Bucky nodded, making sure to keep smiling. "You look about nine." He was actually really small for a nine-year-old, but Pre-Serum Steve had always been little for his age.

"Alright," Bucky said, ignoring the worried murmurs of the rest of the team behind him. "The reason I know your name is because I know you. Do I look familiar to you?" He doubted very much that Steve would believe him if he just told him he was Bucky.

Steve tilted his head, studying him. "Well," he said after a minute. "You…" He paused, like he was afraid he was about to get the answer wrong. "You kind of look like my friend Bucky's dad."

Bucky's smile grew a little bit at that, amused and a little bit touched to think he looked like his pop. He'd never really thought about that before.

"But you're not Mr. Barnes," Steve continued, a slight question punctuating the remark.

"No," Bucky confirmed. "I'm not. You're close, though. Why don't you look me in the eyes—a good, long look—and see if you don't recognize me." If Steve could recognize him on his own, that would make things a lot easier, and Bucky didn't think it was too much of a gamble. No one knew either of them as well as the other one, even back when they'd been that little.

Steve shuffled forward awkwardly in his over-sized uniform, hesitating, then moving closer, then stopping, then moving again, until he was inches from Bucky's face. He narrowed his eyes and stared intently into Bucky's. After a minute, Bucky saw a spark of recognition catch, followed quickly by a furrow of skepticism across his eyebrows. He tilted his head, as if the new angle would offer a clearer answer, then his little hands shot up and grabbed the sides of Bucky's face and he leaned in until their noses were almost touching.

"Bucky?" he whispered.

Bucky smiled warmly. "Hiya, Stevie."

"But," Steve said, letting go of his face and backing away a few inches. "But what…" He looked him up and down as if confirming what he saw. "You're all grown up."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed. This probably wasn't the right moment to point out that it was actually Steve who was the incorrect age.

"What happened?" Steve asked.

"To be honest with you, Stevie, I have no idea," Bucky admitted. "But we're gonna figure it out," he said firmly, because even if Steve didn't have any idea what was going on or what needed figuring out, he was still scared. "I promise."

"Okay," Steve agreed, and that seemed to settle him a little. Bucky felt warmth spreading in his chest at the realization that the little guy trusted him that much.

"Now," Bucky asked, reaching out and putting his hands on Steve's shoulders. (Dear Lord, he was skinny!) "Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?" Even if the rest of them had broken his fall, he'd still dropped several feet, and who knew what the glowy green light actually did to him.

"I'm okay," Steve said.

"And your asthma?" Bucky asked, figuring that was back now too. "Are you breathing okay?"

Steve nodded. "Uh huh."

"Okay," Bucky said, getting to his feet. Big Steve had a tendency to downplay how much he was hurt, but Steve hadn't really done that when he'd been this little, so he believed him. Now that the immediate crisis was in hand, there were still giant dragon-fish aliens flying around the building. "Where we are right now isn't very safe, so what say we get out of here, huh?" Steve nodded quickly, clearly unnerved by his surroundings even if he didn't know why. "It might be a little tough to walk in all that," Bucky went on, gesturing at the folds of Steve's uniform. "Is it okay if I carry you?"

Steve glanced around the room uncertainly, then nodded again, looking up at Bucky. Bucky smiled and scooped him up, and he could tell the little guy was trying hard to be brave, but the way he nestled in against Bucky's chest told him how scared he really was. He wrapped his arms protectively around him and patted him on the back. "Okay, I gotcha. Let's get out of here." He started walking, casting a questioning eye around at the others, but they all seemed to agree that whatever had happened, this was no place for a kid. "If you find anything," Bucky said to Stark, nodding significantly down at Steve. "You call me. But we're gonna go wait in the Quinjet."

"Yeah," Stark nodded, still staring at Steve in shock. The attention of Stark and the rest of the team was clearly making Steve uneasy, and he shifted a little closer into Bucky's chest. "Yeah," Stark said again, nodding and pulling himself back together. "Let's catch us a glowing guy."

They were mostly quiet as they made their way back to the jet. Bucky was keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign of the monsters, one hand securely around Steve and one hand holding his gun at the ready. Steve had both hands wrapped around Bucky's neck and seemed aware of the seriousness of the situation, clinging tighter to Bucky when they passed one of the dead creatures, but not saying anything to distract him.

"Hey, Bucky?" he asked softly, once they made it outside uncontested.

"Yeah?" Bucky asked, relaxing a little but not letting his guard down entirely.

"I was wonderin'…" He trailed off for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase his question. "It wasn't you that got big all of a sudden, was it? I got little, didn't I?"

Bucky arched an eyebrow, surprised. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Just 'cause, I mean, I don't know how I got here, and everybody back in there was lookin' at me all weird, and my clothes are too big, and so, well…I'm supposed to be a grown up too, aren't I?"

Bucky smiled. "You always were a smart cookie, you know that?" That got a little smile out of Steve. "Yeah," he agreed with a sigh. "You are supposed to be a grown up." He looked down at him seriously. "You know I wasn't trying to hide that from you, right?"

"I know," Steve said, giving him a small, but warm smile. "But you don't know why I'm little now?"

Bucky sighed. "No. I mean, I saw it happen, but I don't know how it happened."

"I don't remember being grown up," Steve went on. "I just feel like I oughtta be nine. I don't remember getting little again, either."

"What do you remember?" Bucky asked curiously.

Steve frowned thoughtfully, considering. "I remember going to school. We were learnin' about fractions. Then you and me climbed some trees until dinner time. Me and ma had spaghetti, then we listened to a murder mystery on the radio. Then I took a bath and went to bed, and then…then I was in there," he finished, nodding back at the warehouse.

"Huh," Bucky said. That sounded innocent enough.

"How old am I supposed to be?" Steve wondered.

Bucky chuckled. "Well, that's…There's a long story to answer that question, but I guess the easy answer is that you should be twenty-eight."

"What's the hard answer?"

Bucky climbed up into the jet, sealing the door behind them as he considered. He didn't see the harm in giving him the whole story—besides, it would become fairly obvious fairly quickly that it wasn't 1947 outside. And they probably had a while before the rest of the team cleared out the monsters.

He settled Steve into one of the seats on the side of the plane and started talking. Steve listened intently, not interrupting once as Bucky told him about Dr. Erskine and the formula, World War II, Hydra, the Valkyrie, the ice and waking up in the future. He told him about the Avengers, what each member of the team did and their assorted superpowers. Steve's jaw was just about on the floor by the time Bucky was done.

"Wow," Steve breathed. "That's so cool." He was quiet for a few minutes, absorbing everything Bucky had said. "I really grow up to be tall?" he clarified.

Bucky laughed. "Seriously? Super-soldier strength, frozen in time, and aliens, and _that's_ what you take away from this story?"

Steve huffed a soft laugh, blushing a little. "I just never figured I'd be tall, is all."

"Yeah, well, you get even taller than me one day," Bucky told him.

"Awesome," Steve said. "Hey, um, is it okay if, I mean, do you mind if…Is it alright if I ask about your arm?" he asked timidly, nodding at Bucky's metal arm. "Is it, I mean, if you don't wanna talk about it, that's alright," he went on hurriedly. Steve was smart enough to have worked out that the arm was a prosthetic, even if he'd never seen one that advanced, and he was sensitive enough to know that people didn't always like to talk about things like that. He was clearly curious, though. Bucky had caught him shooting covert glances at the arm since they'd sat down.

Steve blushed a little. "It's just, after 1945, you weren't in that story much," he added, as if explaining his reasoning for asking the question. "Did something happen to you?"

Bucky sighed. He hadn't really wanted to get into all of _that_ with Steve, but he'd never been dishonest with him before and he didn't intend to start now. "Yeah," Bucky sighed. "I'll tell you, because you deserve the truth, but this part of the story is a lot messier than the first part," he warned him. Steve nodded solemnly.

Once again, Steve didn't interrupt as Bucky spoke. He told him about Hydra, what they did to him and what he did afterwards. He told him about DC last year, and Steve finding him and saving him. He told him about running away and then coming home.

Steve's eyes were just as wide as they had been after the first story, but now they were pooling with tears. Bucky looked down at him warily, wondering if he'd shared too much of the darkness, and prepared to get up and move away in case Steve was afraid of the monster that had been inside him.

To his surprise, Steve flung his little arms around Bucky's middle and buried his face in his chest. "I'm so sorry, Bucky," he whispered. He hugged him tightly. "I'm sorry you got hurt so bad," he said softly.

Bucky smiled warmly. "It's okay, Steve," he told him. "I'm okay now."

"How?" Steve asked tearfully. "After all that bad stuff…"

"You wanna know how?" Bucky asked him, one finger tilting Steve's chin up so he was looking at him. "I'm okay because of you. You saved me, Stevie," he said, swallowing down a waver in his voice. "You saved me, and you helped me get better." He hugged his little friend against his chest. "That's how I'm okay."

Steve hugged him back tightly. "I'm glad you're okay," he whispered.

They sat there for a couple of minutes, then Steve sat back up. He looked at Bucky's arm curiously, ghosting a finger over his forearm but not quite touching it. "Does it hurt?" he wondered.

"A little," Bucky said. He reached up to tap his shoulder, where the metal met flesh. "Right here. Not bad, just kind of sore." Steve still looked worried, and not too far off from tears again, so Bucky held the arm out for him to inspect, hoping to distract him. "You can touch it if you want."

Steve rested cautious fingertips on the metal, then curved his hand around the forearm. He ran his hand slowly across the limb, gasping when Bucky twisted his arm and the plating shifted and reshaped. "Wow," he breathed. "It moves like muscles."

"Uh huh," Bucky confirmed, flexing and twisting it a little more to demonstrate.

Steve watched in fascination as Bucky curled and uncurled his fingers, his own hand mirroring the motion.

The door of the Quinjet hissed and opened, and Steve startled and jumped back against Bucky. Bucky's gun was up in his hand again before he registered that it was Stark coming up the ramp. "Took you long enough," Bucky said.

"Yeah, well, the portal-jumping aliens are a little hard to chase, due to, you know, the portal jumping and all," Stark snapped.

"We got them all, though," Natasha said. "But no sign of the portal-opening guy. He must have taken off, because no more creatures were coming through."

"We'll find him, though," Stark declared. "Now that we know what to look for."

Bucky decided to wait a while before asking how long he thought that might take. If they were going to have to hunt the guy down, it looked like Steve might be staying little until then, and there was no need to freak him out. Speaking of which, Steve was huddled against his side, staring warily at his team mates as they boarded the jet. Rhodes, Sam and Thor had clearly gotten some sort of heads-up about what happened, and they were hiding their surprise at being face to face with it with varying degrees of failure. Barton, Natasha and Stark weren't doing much better.

They did all, however, seem to realize their attention was making Steve uncomfortable, so they backed away to different seats and areas of the jet to give him some space and allow Bucky to make introductions one at a time.

"So, I've explained a lot for him," Bucky told Natasha, and he knew everyone else was listening well enough to hear it too. "But he doesn't remember anything past being nine years old, so, some reintroductions might be in order. Steve," he said, looking down and patting Steve's arm. "This is Natasha."

"Hello," Steve said politely, more at ease now that the whole team wasn't being thrown at him all at once. "Nice to meet you, ma'am." He held out a hand. "I'm Steve."

Natasha smiled warmly. "Hi, Steve," she said, shaking his hand.

Bucky introduced each of them in turn, and they all held their composure reasonably well, though Stark, for possibly the first time, seemed at a loss for words.

They took off, and though Steve stayed glued to Bucky's side, he loosened up a little as the journey went on. Bucky hadn't seen the side of Natasha that was good with kids before, but she sat there next to Steve and asked him questions about himself and what he liked to do, and answered questions about the plane and some of the Avenging stuff they did. When Steve seemed settled, Barton came over and joined them, pulling out a deck of cards. They shifted down the floor to play Go Fish, and Thor—eager as always to learn new Earth games— and Sam joined them. Steve seemed most in awe of Thor, but quickly warmed up to the genial giant.

"Coming up on home," Rhodes announced from up front.

"Come on," Bucky said, standing up. "You're gonna wanna see this, Stevie." He picked him up again—he was wrapped up enough in his over-sized uniform to stay decent, but they were going to have to find him some kid-sized clothes pronto—and walked up to the front window as they broke through the clouds.

Steve's jaw dropped. "Whoa," he breathed. New York City lay stretched out before them. Standing up proudly amid all the other skyscrapers was Avengers Tower, gleaming in the sunlight. "Whoa," Steve said again, lost for anything else to say.

Bucky smiled, and he caught Natasha doing the same. Yes, this was a very, very not good situation, but the wonder on Steve's little face was something else.

Bucky carried Steve down the ramp when they landed on the roof, which was just as well. He would have tripped over himself in that giant uniform anyway, but the wind was strong enough up here to blow the little guy right off the side.

"Alright," Stark said, once they were inside. "I'm gonna head down to the lab and get started on that," he said, pointing at Steve. "There's some stuff for him down in his quarters—get him changed and bring him down so I can take some readings."

"What do you mean there's stuff for him?" Bucky asked. "You keep a spare set of kid's clothes laying around the Tower?"

"No," Stark huffed. "But I have one-hour delivery from Amazon."

"You get one-hour delivery?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Perk of being Tony Stark. F.R.I.D.A.Y. took a quick scan on the jet and got some measurements, so it should all fit him fine."

Bucky nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

They got into the elevator with Natasha and Barton, and once the doors were closed, Steve said quietly, "I can change myself, you know. I don't need you to do it for me."

His cheeks were red, and Bucky gave him an encouraging smile. "I know. He didn't mean it like that."

"Stark doesn't always think through what he's saying when he's focused on something else," Barton added. "He talks to everybody like that."

"He's not so bad once you get to know him," Natasha said. She smiled. "You thought he was kind of rude the first time too, but you guys are pretty good friends now."

"Okay," Steve said, still a little skeptical about that last part, but too polite to say so.

They all got out of the elevator, and Bucky and Steve headed for their end of the wing, and sure enough, there was a pile of delivery boxes sitting on the couch just inside Steve's quarters. "Wow," Steve said as Bucky opened them. "Mr. Stark got all that for me?"

"Yep," Bucky said. Hopefully, the amount of things Stark had ordered was just part of his general attitude of excessiveness, and not a reflection on how long he thought it might take to fix this. "I'm gonna go across the hall to my room and get changed too," he said, pointing through the open door to where his was visible. "Come get me when you're ready, alright?"

"Okay."

* * *

Tony stepped out of the Iron Man suit and it flew off to its lab for repairs and cleaning. Seriously, what was it with aliens and the disgusting bodily fluids going everywhere? "F.R.I.D.A.Y., bring me up the specs on Captain Tiny," he said, shoving the question aside for later and studying the data flowing across his screens. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had taken some preliminary readings on the jet, and that would be enough to give him a base to start looking at until they got down here. "Oh, and see if you can find anything on that portal guy."

"Yes, Boss," she said. Tony was still getting used to the fact that even though they had the same programming, she was more succinct than J.A.R.V.I.S. had been.

Tony studied the data, which was not very helpful at the moment. No glaringly obvious signs of anything wrong, anyway, but since when was he ever that lucky? He shook his head, snagging a handful of trail mix from a bowl on the table as he studied a string of numbers. This was…There was a lot of weird stuff that went on when you were an Avenger, but Tony didn't think he could think of anything he'd seen that was weirder. This was like a science fiction cliché, right here. And why did he seem to be the only one freaked out by it? Well, okay, not the _only_ one, but everyone else seemed a lot cooler about it than he was. One of his best friends was a literal _child_. Natasha was, okay, very little actually seemed to phase Romanoff, and Clint was always something of a mystery. Sam should be more freaked out about this, though, and what about Barnes? You'd think this was a weekly occurrence, as smoothly as Barnes was handling it. Good with children was not a skill set Tony had pictured the Winter Soldier having, to be honest, though not freaking out externally probably came from somewhere under all that programming.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand. The door swished open behind him while he pondered his screens, and he heard a little voice gasp. He turned around to see Little Steve staring in awe at the room around him, and Tony had to smile a little at that. He always acted too cool for it, but he really did love impressing people.

"Hang on," Barnes said, putting one hand on the little guy's shoulder and pulling him back a couple steps, though he was looking at Tony. He pointed at the bowl of trail mix. "Peanuts," he said. He pointed back at Steve. "Deathly allergic."

"Oh, right," Tony said. He was aware somewhere in the back of his brain of all of Steve's original ailments, but he'd never given them much thought before, seeing as he'd only ever known the jumbo-sized version. "DUM-E, clean that up," he said, waving at the table, moving to a corner sink to wash his hands. He washed them a couple of times, followed by a healthy dose of hand sanitizer before he came back. Last thing the kid needed after a day like today was anaphylactic shock and a trip to the E.R.

"Sorry," he said, walking back over to the two of them. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., pull Cap's old allergies from his file and make sure the kitchen gets a list of that."

"Yes, Boss."

"Thank you," Barnes said.

"Don't mention it," Tony said. "Should have thought of that earlier. You really think that's all back?"

"Seems safer to act like it."

"Good point. We'll check for it in the scan." He patted one of the stools. "Hop on up, Cap."

Steve's eyes snapped back to him from where they'd still been roaming the lab in wonder. "Me?" he clarified.

"Yeah," Tony said. He tried not to stare as the kid clambered up onto the stool. It was one thing knowing Cap used to be a runt, but seeing it—not to mention the kid-sized version—was still frying some circuits in Tony's brain. He never would have guessed the kid was nine. He barely came up above Barnes's hip. He was skinny too—F.R.I.D.A.Y. had ordered some good clothes for him, but the jeans and t-shirt still hung a little loose.

Steve sat up on the stool and shifted a little. "Um, thank you for all the clothes and everything," he said, folding his hands in his lap. "That was really nice of you."

"Don't mention it," Tony said, waving a hand. "Couldn't just leave you to run around naked."

Steve didn't seem sure what to say to that, so he just didn't say anything.

"Okay, I'm gonna need a blood sample," Tony told Steve. "But I promise, that's the only part of this that's gonna hurt."

"Okay," Steve said, sticking out his arm. Tony was a little surprised at his nonchalance, but then, with as sickly a kid as Steve had been, he was probably used to needles and stuff.

Tony took a quick blood sample and slotted it into a machine to start analysis. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., start deep scans," he said. The air around Steve started humming as the A.I. set to her work. Steve looked up and turned his head to follow the noise. "No, no, stay still," Tony said. "Just for another minute."

Steve blushed and returned to his original position. "Sorry, Mr. Stark," he said.

Tony winced internally. Big Steve would have cocked an eyebrow and wiggled a little more before complying, never mind that he actually just called him 'Mr. Stark'. "Don't worry about it," he assured him. "And you can call me Tony."

Steve didn't seem sure what to say to that either.

"All done," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said after a minute.

"Who's that lady that keeps talking?" Steve asked, looking around the room to confirm there was no one else there.

Barnes answered before Tony could figure out how to explain the A.I. to a nine-year-old from the 20's. "It's a robot that lives in the ceiling," he said. "She kind of runs the building."

Steve's jaw dropped, and, okay, that was kind of adorable. "You have a robot?" he asked Tony.

"I've got all kinds of robots," Tony replied. "I can show 'em to you sometime if you like."

Steve nodded eagerly. "That would be really neat!"

Tony couldn't help but smile back a little at his enthusiasm. "Yeah, totally. Maybe after dinner. Right now, though, I gotta work on this. You can get down, by the way," he added when Steve stayed perched on the stool.

"Does it tell you anything good?" Barnes asked, nodding at the streams of data on the screen.

"On the surface, no," Tony admitted. "It looks like he's just a nine-year-old kid. Although, the medical records from what we just got do match his old ones—allergies and all, and the blood sample is serum-free but it checks out. So, at least we know he's not a clone or a duplicate or something. He's nine, but he's one hundred percent Steve Rogers."

The look on Barnes's face told him he hadn't considered that. "That's good. You need anything else, or should we get out of your way?"

"No, go on upstairs. It'll take me a while to get through all this," Tony said, wishing Bruce was here to help.

"Okay," Barnes said. "C'mon, Steve, let's go back upstairs." He held out his metal hand and Steve moved over to take it. "Oh, you said the medical records matched the old ones," he said, looking back at Tony. "His asthma—"

"My one-hour delivery has a couple of inhalers with his prescription on the way," Tony said with a smile.

Barnes smiled. "Thanks."

"Thanks, Mr. Stark," Steve echoed.

"Tony," Tony corrected him.

"Thanks, Mr. Tony," Steve said, and Barnes chuckled and Tony shook his head. It was close enough.

* * *

Bucky had been handling this whole miniaturization of Steve thing beautifully thus far, but Natasha could sense the freak-out that was bubbling under the surface. She offered to give Steve a tour of the Tower so Bucky could have a few minutes, which he gratefully accepted—after making sure Steve was okay with being left with her.

"So, where do you want to start?" Natasha offered.

Steve considered. "I'd really like to see the robots," he said. "But Mr. Stark said he would show me 'em after dinner. How high up are we? Am I allowed to see outside?"

"Sure," she said. She led him to the balcony off the main living room area.

"Whoa!" Steve exclaimed, rushing to the edge and going up on his toes to look over the railing. "We're so high!" He peered down at the streets below in awe. "Are we higher than the Empire State Building?"

"We are," Natasha said. "See? That's it over there." She pointed to the landmark.

"Wow!"

Natasha grinned. She wondered if, internally, Steve's reactions to the sights and technology of the twenty-first century had been the same when he first came out of the ice.

"Is this the tallest building in the world?" Steve asked.

"No," she told him. "There's taller ones. Not here in New York, though."

"I'll bet it's really pretty out here at night," Steve said, looking out over the city. "With all the lights and everything. Have you ever been out here for the Fourth of July? The fireworks have gotta look amazing from here!"

"You know, I never have," she said, suddenly wondering why she hadn't. "I'll have to make sure I do next time. That's your birthday, right?"

"Yeah," Steve said, turning back to look at her. "How did you…Oh, wait, you know that 'cause we're friends, huh? Sorry I keep forgetting."

"No, it's okay," she assured him as his little face fell. "I don't mind."

"I'll bet it's weird for everybody, huh?" he asked. "Bucky said you guys are all my friends, and I guess I'd think it was really weird if one of my friends forgot all about me. I hope I'm not hurting your feelings by not remembering. I'm not trying to."

"Oh, no, that's okay," Natasha assured him, resisting the urge to tack a 'sweetheart' on the end, though she did kneel down in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. "We all know you're doing the best you can." Every now and then, Steve's resilience still surprised her, and it looked like that was something he'd always had. She supposed it was tough to be upset about things you didn't remember losing, but considering that from where he was standing, he'd been ripped out of 1927 and thrown into the future, he was still handling it remarkably well. She wondered how much tougher this would be without Bucky.

"Nobody's upset with you," she added, patting his shoulder. "We're worried about what happened to you, but we know it wasn't your fault. Nobody's mad that you can't remember."

"Okay," he said with a small, grateful smile.

"So, tell me about your birthday," she said, steering them back inside and back to their original conversation. "Do you have special food or play special games?"

"My ma always makes me a strawberry pie," he said with a smile. "That's my favorite."

"No kidding? I love strawberries too."

"Strawberries?" Clint asked from behind them. "Are we getting strawberries?"

"No, though we might need to later," Natasha said. "We're just doing a tour of the Tower."

"Sweet," Clint said. "Hey, you wanna check out the garage? I can show you my motorcycle."

"Yeah!" Steve said excitedly.

"Where's Barnes?" Clint asked quietly as they headed for the elevator.

"Taking his turn to freak out about this," she replied quietly.

Clint nodded. "Good. I was wondering if he was ever going to do that." He turned back to Steve with a smile. "You ever ridden a motorcycle before?"

"No, sir," Steve said. "But Mr. Barnes has an old broken one that he works on sometimes, and he lets me sit on it, and tells me what some of the pieces are."

"Yeah? Well, we'll see if you can spot them on mine, then. Motorcycles are one thing that probably haven't changed much in ninety years."

Natasha smiled as they left the elevator and began poring over the motorcycle. Clint was quizzing Steve on the parts, and Steve was getting most of them right and laughing at Clint's jokes. This was easy for Clint—or easier, anyway—since he had practice being a dad.

"Miss Natasha, do you know how to ride a motorcycle?" Steve asked, noticing that he and Clint had been chatting away without her.

"I sure do," she said. She grinned slyly. "Beat this guy every time we race," she added, nodding at Clint.

Clint snorted. "Sure; 'cause I let you."

"Clinton Francis Barton, you have never 'let' me do anything, and you know I would kill you if you tried."

Steve giggled into his hand.

"What?" Clint asked.

Steve giggled again. "She middle-named you. You better watch out."

Natasha laughed, then looked down at her watch. "What say we move it upstairs, guys? Time for dinner."

"Oh, good!" Steve said, hopping off the motorcycle. "I'm really hungry. What are we having?"

"Sam ordered pizza."

"I love pizza!" Steve enthused.

"Yeah, we know," Clint chuckled. "Big you ate a lot of it."

"How much did I eat when I was big?" Steve wondered.

"Depends how hungry you were," Natasha allowed. "But you could eat two pizzas easy."

"Nuh uh," Steve protested.

"Between you and Thor and Bucky, we'd go through pizzas pretty quick," she said.

"Two is an awful lot," Steve insisted.

"That's what I always said," Clint said.

"I won't eat so much tonight," Steve assured them.

"You eat as much as you want," Natasha said, again swallowing down the urge to call him 'sweetheart'. (Seriously, what was it with that?) "Even if you do eat two pizzas, we won't run out."

They got off the elevator into the main living area, and Clint directed Steve to the kitchen to wash his hands. "You're such a dad," Natasha teased. Clint rolled his eyes and followed Steve, but Natasha hung back as Bucky appeared from the direction of his and Steve's rooms. "How you doing?" she asked. Aside from the oh-my-gosh-Steve-is-a-child panic that she was sure was still swirling through everyone's heads, on a personal level, she knew this was tougher for Bucky. Not just that this had happened to his best friend, but that Steve was Bucky's anchor—he'd been the one to get him through recovering from what Hydra did to him, and the one who helped him keep his feet when things got shaky. Bucky was better now, but whether he was ready to stand on his own or not, he was going to have to.

"Okay," Bucky said, and he sounded like he mostly believed it. "This is, I mean…" He trailed off and gestured at the kitchen and Steve's voice coming through the door. "But he's alive; he's not hurt; and, you know, now it's my turn to be leaned on instead of doing the leaning, and I can do that. And…" He shrugged, and a little smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "I haven't lost him, you know? He's still Steve."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed. Hopefully Tony could fix this and fix it soon, but, yeah. Steve was still here. She bumped Bucky's shoulder and smiled. "Was he really like this last time he was a kid? Because he is cute as hell."

Bucky chuckled. "He was exactly like this."

"Do you know how many times I've had to stop myself from calling him 'sweetheart'?"

Bucky laughed. "I've definitely called him 'Stevie' more than I usually do. He's just so little and cute he invites that kind of thing, you know? Just don't pinch his cheeks. He hates that."

* * *

At dinner, Steve had been introduced to the two remaining members of the team, Vision and Wanda, and they'd handled it just about as well as the rest of them. Everyone was starting to take it in stride, though, and Bucky figured that was good. He could tell it was weirding Steve out when people freaked out about him being little, although it did seem to be more because he didn't know what to do with it than because it hurt his feelings.

People were able to keep up a mostly normal conversation during dinner, even if it was insanely weird that Steve only ate a slice and a half of pizza and declared himself full. After dinner, Stark took him down to one of the labs and showed him some of the Iron Man suits and robots like he'd promised, and it was hard not to smile at the amazement on the little guy's face. Steve was, well, he was ever the optimist, but Bucky didn't know that he'd seen this kind of unbridled joy on his friend's face in a while.

After the robots, Steve started having more trouble swallowing down his yawns, and he didn't argue when Bucky declared it was time for bed, even though it was still kind of early. He showed Steve to his room, and pointed out where everything was in the bathroom so he could get cleaned up. He told him goodnight and pointed out where the door to his own room was again, reminding Steve that he could come across the hall and get him if he needed anything.

Once Steve was in bed, the rest of them gathered in the kitchen.

"Have you had any luck in deciphering this?" Thor asked Stark.

"There's a lot to sort through," Stark said, taking a long sip of coffee. "To be honest, I'm not finding anything promising right now, but it's early stages."

"Guys, what the hell?" Sam asked. "This is, I mean…" He didn't have any more words, but he didn't need them. The rest of them nodded in agreement.

"You have spent the most time with him, Sergeant Barnes," Vision said. "How does he seem to you?"

Bucky exhaled. "He seems…Just like he did last time he was nine. This is just how I remember him. And, yes," he added, holding up a finger to preempt the question he could see forming on Rhodes' lips. "That is something I remember."

"Does he seem worried about his current situation?" Vision wondered.

"I don't think so," Bucky said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure he understands it. But I don't think it bothers him." The uncomfortable thought occurred to him that in some ways, Steve was a lot like he had been when he'd still been the Asset—it was hard to be upset over something you didn't remember losing.

"I think he may be worried about what we think," Nat said. She explained what had happened when she brought up his birthday earlier. "I think he might be worried that we're mad at him for forgetting everything, or that we're hurt by it."

Bucky shook his head. Of course Steve would be more worried about everyone else.

"Are we sure he's forgotten everything?" Barton asked.

"Yeah, dude, he's already told us that he doesn't remember anything after being nine," Sam said.

"No, I mean, yeah, he doesn't remember, but are those memories _gone_?" Barton clarified. "What if they're still in there, but he can't get at them? The kid thing is, yeah, that's new, but we've seen mind control and memory suppression and people messing with other people's heads before. What if Adult Steve is still locked up in there somewhere?"

It was quiet for a few minutes as they considered that possibility.

"I could check," Wanda offered. They all looked at her. "That sort of thing should be fairly easy to spot."

"It would be a good thing to rule out," Stark allowed.

"I can ask him how he feels about it in the morning," Bucky said. He didn't doubt Wanda's abilities, but nobody was going anywhere in Steve's head without his understanding and permission. "It won't hurt him, will it?" He didn't doubt Wanda's intentions either, but he knew what she did could feel…weird.

"No," she assured him. "It would be painless."

"In the meantime," Thor said. "Have we any news on our friend with the portals? If he was capable of doing this, he is capable of undoing it. Whether he wants to or not," he added threateningly.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s working on it," Stark sighed. "Vision, maybe you could help her out—there's a lot of internet out there, and there's a lot of crap about portals on it, most of which is no good."

"I would be happy to," Vision said.

They drifted off not long after, not really much else left to say. Bucky had so much going on in his head that he doubted he'd be able to sleep. But it had been a long day of fighting aliens and freaking out, and worrying really took it out of a guy. He fell asleep quickly, waking not too much later to the sound of his door creaking open. His hand was already wrapped around the hilt of the knife under his pillow before he registered the tiny figure shuffling into the room. He waited, and Steve, wrapped up in a blanket, came to a stop next to his bed.

"Bucky?" he whispered.

"Hey, Stevie," Bucky said. "What's up?"

"Sorry for waking you up."

"Don't worry about it," Bucky said. "You okay?"

Steve shifted a little uncomfortably. "I can't sleep," he said softly. "My room's all different, and it's big and empty, and dark and, and there's weird noises and stuff…"

Bucky smiled, though Steve probably couldn't see it in the dark. It was totally reasonable for Steve to be scared sleeping in a strange new place, even if he was embarrassed to admit it. Bucky probably should have thought of that earlier, actually. "Yeah, it's always kind of weird sleeping in a new place," Bucky said, letting Steve know he wasn't being silly. "The future sounds a lot different, doesn't it? Took me a while to get used to it too." Steve nodded, and Bucky moved over on the mattress. "You can come up here if you want," he offered, patting the empty space beside him. "Maybe the sound of someone else breathing will help with the weird noises," he said, trying to sound casual so Steve wouldn't think he was babying him.

A grateful smile crossed Steve's face. "Okay," he said quietly. "Thanks." He climbed up and climbed under the covers, still wrapped up in his own blanket. The little guy always did get cold easy.

"Comfy?" Bucky asked, draping an arm loosely across his shoulders. Steve nodded. "Okay. But if you snore, I'm rolling you off the mattress." Steve giggled and Bucky smiled. "Goodnight, kiddo."

"G'night, Bucky."

* * *

_So there's Day One of Tiny Steve. Next up, Wanda does some investigating, Clint and Steve make pancakes, and the team tries to figure out what exactly one does with a nine-year-old._


	2. Of Forts And Feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny Steve's first full day in the future: Steve has some thoughts on Bucky's arm; he and Wanda have a nice little moment; and the Avengers build a fort in the living room.

* * *

When Bucky woke up the next morning, a tiny weight in dinosaur pajamas was resting on his chest, little limbs snaking out to wrap around his torso. Bucky rolled his eyes. "I forgot you were such an octopus, man," he whispered—most of their sleepovers in the 20's had ended up the same way.

Bucky carefully extricated himself from the tangle of Steve and got out of bed. Steve burrowed down deeper into the covers with a sleepy snuffle and did not wake—even the war had never really managed to kick how deep of a sleeper he was. Bucky smiled fondly and headed for the bathroom. Steve was still asleep when he got out of the shower, so he flicked on the light and reached down and poked him in the side, eliciting a displeased grunt.

"Wake up, Stevie," he said. He reached down and ruffled Steve's hair, and Steve blinked his eyes open grumpily. "Morning."

Steve's eyes jumped around the room, confused for a minute before he remembered where he was. "Morning, Bucky," he said, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"You sleep okay?" Bucky asked, turning around to the closet to grab a shirt.

"Yeah, I—oh," Steve said.

Bucky turned back around at the soft, alarmed noise. "You okay?"

Steve nodded. "Uh huh. I just…" He nodded at Bucky's shoulder. "That looks like it hurts," he said quietly.

Even though he'd been reaching for a shirt, Bucky hadn't consciously realized until just then that he'd come out of the bathroom in just his sweatpants. Steve had only seen part of his arm yesterday, and now he was staring at the scarred flesh of Bucky's shoulder where the metal jammed up into the skin and bone, looking horrified and a little sick.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Bucky said quickly, feeling his cheeks flush and turning back to the closet to grab something to throw over it.

"No, Bucky, wait," Steve said, and Bucky heard his little feet patter across the floor. "I didn't mean for…I'm sorry." He reached up and touched Bucky's elbow, and Bucky turned around. Steve was staring up at him with big, sad eyes. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"It's okay," Bucky said, sliding on the shirt he'd grabbed. "I know it's not very nice to look at."

"No," Steve said, shaking his head. "It's not that."

Bucky crouched down to look him in the eye, tilting his head curiously. "Then what is it?"

Steve reached over to touch Bucky's shoulder, but pulled his hand back before he did. "I can't believe someone really did that to you," he said softly. "It's so…" He trailed off helplessly, his nine-year-old vocabulary unable to find the words he wanted. Bucky knew what they were, though, although it had taken grown-up Steve a while to find them too. Bucky grunted in surprise as Steve flung himself forward and threw his arms around Bucky's neck. "I'm so sorry they hurt you like that," he whispered. "But you don't…" He pulled back and looked at Bucky, eyes shining. "If you don't like people looking at it, that's okay." One little hand slid down, grabbing the material over Bucky's shoulder and twisting it into his fist. "But please don't be embarrassed about it in front of me." He gave him a sympathetic smile. "I'm your friend, Bucky. You don't have to worry about hiding stuff like that from me."

Something warm uncurled and expanded in Bucky's chest, and he pulled Steve back into the hug. "You're something else, Stevie," he said softly. "Thanks."

Steve hugged him back tightly, and Bucky hung on to him a moment longer, then patted the back of his head and stood up. "You wanna go get some breakfast?"

* * *

"I know Barton has kids and everything," Sam said, taking a sip of his coffee. "But it's weirding me out how good he is at this."

Bucky nodded in agreement. Sam guessed the little eyebrow quirk he shot him before nodding was him wondering if Sam was going to say something about _him_ being good with Steve. The Winter Soldier having what could only be described as a paternal side probably _did_ surprise some of the group, but given all Sam had heard about Bucky while he and Steve had been looking for him, and what Sam had seen since Bucky started finding his feet again, he didn't think it was unusual at all. That caretaker instinct of Bucky's was one of the first things to wake up after he remembered who he was, and this was just an extension of that. So, no, Papa Bear Bucky didn't surprise Sam at all.

What _did_ surprise him was Clint Barton, standing at the stove and showing Steve, who was standing on a stool next to him, the right way to flip pancakes and singing, for some reason, a supremely irritating, very repetitive song about tacos.

"It's raining tacos! From out of the sky! Tacos! No need to ask why! Just open your mouth, and close your eyes," Clint sang.

He held out his spatula to Steve as if it were a microphone. "It's raining tacos!" Steve sang with a smile.

"It's raining tacos! Out on the street!" Clint continued.

"Tacos!" Steve chimed in. "All you can eat!"

"Lettuce and shells, cheese and meat—it's raining tacos!" Clint finished, going wildly off-key and making Steve giggle. "Oh, wait, that one's ready to flip!" he said, pointing at one of the pancakes. "You got it?"

"Got it!" Steve said, and he worked his spatula under the pancake, flipping it over with a little too much flourish, but still landing it back in the pan.

"Awesome!" Clint said, holding up a hand for a high five, which Steve returned enthusiastically. "Okay! It's raining tacos! From—" he started to sing again.

"One more note, and I will murder you with that spatula," Natasha growled, walking into the kitchen with a glare.

"Someone's grumpy before she has her breakfast," Clint said in a stage whisper to Steve, which might have gotten him murdered with the spatula anyway, if not for the fact that it made Steve giggle again, and Sam could see Natasha fighting down a smile.

"Barton's lucky Steve's so cute," she muttered, dropping down into the chair next to Sam.

He really was, Sam had to admit. He was ridiculously tiny, his blond hair hanging down in his face in a way that just invited your fingers to brush it back and tuck it behind his ears, and his big blue eyes staring at everything in awe. He had an awfully sweet little giggle (which weirded Sam out a little, because Steve laughed, sure, but Sam had never heard the big guy giggle), and it was hard not to smile when that thousand-watt grin lit up his face. The fact that he was wearing dinosaur pajamas just made it that much cuter.

Bucky poured Natasha a cup of coffee, and Steve and Clint continued making and flipping pancakes, though the singing stopped. Not that it mattered. That song was going to be in Sam's head the rest of the day.

"Here's your pancakes, Miss Natasha," Steve said, coming over from the stove with a plate. He handed her the plate and a fork, and she thanked him with a smile. "And here's yours, Mr. Sam," he said, coming back with another plate.

"He does know he can just call us by our names, right?" Sam asked Bucky after accepting the plate from Steve, who hurried back to the stove.

Bucky chuckled. "Are you kidding? He's nine and you're an adult; you're lucky he's not calling you 'Mr. Wilson'."

"Here you go, Bucky," Steve said, bringing over another plate.

"Thanks, man," Bucky said as Steve rushed away to get his own food.

"You're not 'Mr. Bucky', though," Sam pointed out.

"Well, sure," Bucky said, digging into his pancakes. "But he remembers me. If he'd known you in 1927, he'd probably call you 'Sam'. He might do it eventually, once he gets to know you better."

"Well, hopefully we'll get this cleared up before that," Sam said, getting another nod from Bucky.

Steve and Clint came over to the table, each carrying their own plate of pancakes. "These are really good, Steve," Natasha said, gesturing at her plate with her fork.

"Thanks!" Steve beamed. "I've never had 'em with bacon inside before, but Mr. Clint says they taste better that way."

"Almost anything tastes better with bacon," Bucky agreed.

"There's lots more," Steve said, pointing back to the stove. "Superheroes sure eat a lot."

Sam laughed. That was pretty rich coming from Steve, even if he was only eating two small pancakes right now.

"So," Steve asked, cutting his pancake into ridiculously neat little pieces. "After breakfast, am I supposed to go to school?" Everyone looked at him, their faces as puzzled as Sam felt. "Well, 'cause I'm a kid again," Steve explained. "Shouldn't I go to school?"

"Let's hold off on school for a little while, Stevie," Bucky said. "Hopefully, Stark will figure out how to make you big again, and big you's already done the fourth grade."

Steve considered this, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of pancake. "But what if I forget fractions? We were in the middle of them when I came here."

Bucky smiled. "If you end up needing fractions before you get big again, we'll help you figure them out."

"Okay," Steve agreed.

The talk turned to what they planned to do for the day, since no one had any missions on the docket. Steve listened quietly and curiously. Sam wondered if it was just his old-fashioned manners kicking in and keeping him from interrupting while the grownups talked, or if he was actually interested in the ordinary lives of the Avengers. He supposed it was an interesting thing for a kid, what a superhero did on their day off.

They were all planning on checking in with Tony to see if he needed anything, and Natasha was going to hit up some contacts to see if there was any word on the portal guy, but there wasn't a whole lot else for them to do to solve this problem right now.

Sam started wondering what Steve was going to do all day. It's not like the Tower had toys or games or anything, and what did a kid from the 20's do for fun anyway? They could hardly just send him down to the street to run around.

"So, Steve," Sam said when they hit a lull in the conversation. "What kind of stuff do you like to do? Since you don't have to go to school today and all."

"Well," Steve said slowly, thinking. "I like playing baseball. I'm not very good, though, but it's fun. And I like to read. I like the Doctor Doolittle books, and I got a new adventure book called The Midnight Folk, and it's really good. I didn't get to finish it, though," he said a little sadly, as if just realizing he didn't have any of his old stuff with him. He shook his head. "And I like playing games and drawing and stuff."

"You like building forts?" Clint asked.

"Yeah!"

"We've got some stuff around here that could make a pretty sweet fort," Barton said.

"Yeah, let's do that!" Steve enthused. "Do you wanna play?" he asked, looking back at Sam.

"You know what? Yeah, let's build a fort," Sam said with a smile. There was something inside that still stung, seeing Steve like this, but…Well, at least he was happy. And it was hard not to smile back at that joyful innocence.

Thor came in as they were finishing and gladly accepted the invitation to join in the fort-building. Steve sat there and visibly struggled not to let his jaw drop as he watched the Asgardian eat at least twenty pancakes.

They all stood in the living room for a while, examining the layout and deciding what they would need for a good fort. Sam had built forts with his nephews last time he went to visit, but Clint was right, they could make a pretty epic one with what was available in the Tower.

Thor and Bucky did the heavy lifting of moving couches around, and the rest of them gathered mattresses, blankets and pillows. By the time they were done, the fort had multiple rooms, a second floor, and even hook-ups for lamps, tablets and iPods.

"This is the best fort ever," Steve declared proudly when they were done.

"I'll say," Bucky agreed. "Sure beats the ones we used to make out of cardboard boxes in my living room."

"We're not done yet, though," Natasha said.

"We're not?" Steve asked.

"Nope. We need snacks," she explained.

"That would make it better," Steve conceded. Natasha and Clint left to rummage up some snacks, and Thor and Bucky took Steve back into the fort to go over the entrances and weak points and make sure it was properly defensible.

Sam was sent to scrounge up some more couch cushions to shore up a gap in the north side, and he laughed when he came back into the living room and saw the look on Tony's face.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Obviously, we're making a fort," Natasha said, coming back in, her arms loaded with snacks.

"Yeah!" Steve said, flipping aside a blanket and appearing in one of the doorways. "Oh, good!" he said, spotting Sam and his stack of cushions. "Come put those over here, Mr. Sam. I'll help you carry them." He took a couple of cushions from Sam and led him to the weak point in the construction. "You wanna play too, Mr. Tony?" Steve offered.

"Uh, no thanks, kid. I've got a lot to work on," Tony said. Sam caught the way he winced as Steve's face fell, and Tony added, "But maybe later? This thing doesn't look like it's coming down any time soon."

"Okay," Steve said. "We'll save you a spot."

Tony pulled Bucky aside to talk to him about something, and Sam and Steve finished fixing the hole under Thor's instruction.

"Excellent!" Thor declared from his seat on the top level. "Even a Frost Giant would have difficulty coming this way."

"A Frost Giant?" Steve asked curiously.

"Indeed," Thor said. "They are large, blue beings with the ability to create ice and snow from their very fingertips and freeze a man's blood."

"Whoa," Steve breathed.

"My people fought many wars with them," Thor continued. "In fact…" He cupped a hand to his ear. "Listen! Do you hear them coming? They would attack our fort and steal our treasures!" he said, gesturing dramatically at the snacks.

"Oh, no!" Steve exclaimed. He jumped up and grabbed Sam's hand. "Quick, Mr. Sam! Come inside before they freeze you!" He led Sam through one of the many doorways, and Sam crawled in after him and propped a pillow against the entrance. "Good thinking," Steve said.

"Thanks," Sam said. "We should go find Thor and see if he needs help."

"Back, fiend!" they heard Thor yell. "Back to Jotenheim!"

"Sounds like he needs us," Steve said. "This way!"

He led Sam through the maze of tunnels and climbed up an armchair to reach Thor's level. Thor was sitting on one of the upper couches, throwing balled up socks at Clint, who was evidently playing the part of the Frost Giant. Sam and Steve joined the barrage, not noticing Natasha coming up from the other side. She reached up and touched Thor's arm with a cold can of soda.

"I am hit!" Thor yelled, falling back onto the couch clutching at his arm. "Oh, the ice, the ice flows into my veins!"

"Cover him!" Steve said, then started throwing balled up socks at Natasha in rapid succession, several bouncing off her head. She groaned and staggered back, handing her soda can to Barton. "Is he okay?" Steve asked, turning back to look at Thor.

"I shall survive, my Captain," Thor assured him. "But I can fight no more this day. But beware!" he said, pointing behind them. Barton was coming back.

"I'll cover Barton," Sam said, picking up several projectiles. "You watch Thor," he told Steve.

Steve nodded, then wrapped his arms over his head and ducked down over Thor as Clint let fly with a fierce barrage of balled up socks. They stopped abruptly as Clint grunted, having been tackled from the side by Bucky.

"Ha, ha!" Clint crowed. "Got you right where I want you!" He took the soda can Natasha had handed him and started reaching for Bucky's neck.

"No!" Steve yelled, and he flung himself off the couch and landed on Clint's gut hard enough to knock the wind out of him. "Save yourself, Bucky! I'll hold him off!"

Clint started laughing, and Sam thought at first it was at Little Steve's very Big Steve-like heroics, but he kept laughing, finally drawing in enough air to exclaim, "Hey, that's cheating!"

He kept laughing, and Sam realized that Steve had found Clint's ticklish spot and was attacking it without mercy. "Say Uncle!" he ordered.

Clint held out a minute longer, then capitulated. "Alright! Alright! Uncle! You win!"

"A well won victory!" Thor declared. "Come! We shall celebrate with a feast!" He disappeared back into the fort to where the snacks were stashed.

"I didn't hurt you, did I, Mr. Clint?" Sam heard Steve ask quietly.

"Nah, I'm fine, Cap," Clint said, still chuckling. "Let's eat."

Bucky was shaking his head as he came to join Sam. "Self-sacrificing little idiot," he said, huffing a laugh.

"Hasn't changed that much, has he?" Sam asked.

"Nope." He laughed. "He used to pull that tickling move on me when we wrestled. He was never strong enough to beat me, but if he could get a hand free, he'd always try that."

" 'Cause you always told me I had to fight smart instead of hard since I'm so little," Steve said, popping his head out from between a pair of blankets. "Come on; we're waiting on you guys to start snacks."

* * *

Wanda was sitting in Stark's lab, a very tiny Steve Rogers sitting on an exam table in front of her. It was strange, certainly, but Wanda's life had been very strange for the past few years. This actually felt less odd than some of the things she'd seen.

"Okay," Stark said. "I think we're good to go." In their quest to decipher the mystery of their de-aged leader, Stark thought it would be best if he and his machines monitored Wanda's search of his mind—not because he didn't trust Wanda, he'd felt the need to point out, but because he could get extra readings and scans of Steve's brain activity, and he could use all the data he could get. Wanda had decided not to over-analyze it and believe him. She knew, even though she'd been accepted onto the team, that her powers made the rest of them wary, and after their first meeting, she could hardly begrudge them that.

"Are you sure you understand what we're doing here, Stevie?" Bucky asked. Wanda knew he had explained at length to Steve what she was going to attempt to do. His hesitancy, she knew, came from decades of Hydra manipulating his mind—anything involving going into someone else's brain made him leery, in addition to the fact that he felt fiercely protective of this young Steve. Both of those emotions Wanda could feel rolling off him strongly enough that she actually needed to shield herself from them just a little, and as neither stemmed from distrust of her, she took no offense at them.

"I understand," Steve said. "She's gonna look inside my head and see if Big Me is in there somewhere."

"And you're okay with that?" Bucky asked, not for the first time.

"Uh huh," Steve said. He looked a little hesitantly at Wanda. "It's not gonna hurt, right?"

"It will not hurt," she promised him. "It may feel strange," she allowed. "And if it becomes too much, just let me know and I will stop." She knew different people reacted in different ways to what she did, but she had never used her ability on a child before. It still shouldn't hurt, but there was a possibility that he would feel her presence in his mind very intensely.

"Okay," he said, and she appreciated the trust on his little face.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., start recording," Stark said. "Whenever you're ready," he said with a nod at Wanda.

Wanda took a moment and closed her eyes, gathering her focus. She felt her power swelling up, rolling through her body, and familiar tendrils of red light were dancing around her hands when she opened her eyes.

Carefully, she reached over and placed her hands around Steve's face, not quite touching him. Her fingers moved, manipulating the flow of energy into a form that could enter his consciousness. Wanda was distantly aware of Bucky shifting uneasily on the table where he sat next to Steve as Steve inhaled sharply, but she ignored him, focusing on the task at hand. Steve's eyes drifted out of focus, their blue irises glowing red as Wanda's power touched his mind.

Emotions flew at her—fear at this strange new future, confusion at how he'd come here, trust that Bucky would take care of him… She let them wash over her in waves, knowing she must pass them before making her way to specific thoughts and memories. Slowly the tide of emotions ebbed and she began her search. She was going carefully, but at a soft whimper from Steve, she moved even more gently. Steve whimpered again, and she could sense his agitation growing, though she could also sense him attempting to rein it back in. She moved as quickly as she could while still being careful, not wanting to drag this out for him any longer than necessary.

"Stop," he whispered. "Stop it, please, I don't…I don't like it." Wanda was already pulling back, but she couldn't do it too quickly without damaging something, as deep in as she was, and his distress continued to mount. "I don't like it; I don't like it! Make it stop!" His little voice was wavering fearfully, and Wanda ignored the way it tugged on her heart and focused on pulling out safely.

The red light vanished and she released him, and Steve turned and collapsed against Bucky's chest with a moan. Bucky's arms wrapped around him, scooping him up into his lap and cradling him protectively. "Sh, sh," he soothed, stroking Steve's blond hair. "Sh. It's okay. It's okay, I've got you. I've got you. It's alright." Steve's whimpering slowly subsided, though he kept his face buried in Bucky's shirt. Bucky's eyes snapped up to meet Wanda's. "I thought you said it wasn't going to hurt him!" he said, unable to keep all of the accusation out of his voice.

"She didn't hurt me," Steve said softly. He lifted his head just enough for his watery eyes to be visible. "I don't know what that was, but it didn't hurt."

"I'm sorry, Steve," Wanda said sadly, knowing she'd frightened him.

"'S'okay," he whispered. "Just please don't ever do that again."

"I won't," she assured him.

He nodded and returned his face to its hiding spot.

Wanda sighed heavily and got up. "I'll go," she said quietly. She'd hoped she'd be able to do something to help, but this was why she'd been afraid to offer her service in the first place.

"Did you at least learn anything?" Stark asked.

She nodded. "I saw everything I needed. He is truly a nine-year-old boy. There is nothing hidden there that shouldn't be. No memories of an older life locked away. Nothing but exactly what he appears to be on the surface."

Stark nodded and Wanda left, her heart clenching at the soft, sad little sounds Steve was making and Bucky's soothing noises as he tried to comfort him. She made her way quickly to her room, tears welling in her eyes as she walked. Dropping down onto her bed, she hugged a pillow against her chest and buried her face in it, willing the tears not to fall. Even after she'd turned on Ultron and helped to destroy him, it had taken the team a while to trust her—some longer than others. She didn't blame them for that, but it still hurt, knowing there was that fear there. But Steve…Steve had trusted her almost right away. Despite the fact that she'd gotten into his mind, despite the fact that she'd dug up his pain and trapped him in it for a while, he'd trusted her. He'd seen her turn her back on Ultron and he took her at her word. He treated her like part of the team. He helped her with the loss of her brother, because he knew what it was like to lose someone, and he'd welcomed her into this little family, because he knew what it was like to be alone. He'd never hesitated, never feared her, and it killed Wanda to think that she'd lost that now.

There was a soft knock at her door, and it was probably Vision coming to check on her, but when she sat up and turned around, she saw Steve standing there instead.

"Miss Wanda?" he said softly, like he wasn't sure if he should come in.

"Hello, Steve," she said, turning on as a big a smile as she could muster. If the look on his face was anything to go by, she wasn't doing a very good job of it. "Is everything alright?"

He nodded.

"You can come in," she said as he continued to hover by the door, though she wasn't sure if he wanted to.

He shuffled inside, eyes on his feet. "I'm sorry," he said softly.

"For what?"

He looked up at her, his eyes bright and sad, but no longer afraid. "About before," he said, nodding back in the direction of the door and the lab beyond. "I got all scared and everything, but I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings," he finished quietly.

Wanda smiled, feeling touched at his concern. "It's alright," she told him. "I know you didn't mean to. And I know what I can do can be quite frightening."

Steve nodded. "Yeah. But, I just…I thought I should tell you that even though it was scary, what happened, that I'm not scared of you."

Wanda blinked in surprise. "You're not?"

Steve shook his head. "No," he said, and his little eyes held nothing but sincerity.

Warmth spread through Wanda's chest, and she found herself blinking back tears again. "Thank you, Steve," she said softly.

He hesitated a moment, then climbed up on the bed and sat cross-legged beside her. "Is something wrong?" he asked gently, resting a hand on her arm.

"No. These are good tears," she said, acknowledging them since she couldn't make them go away. "It means a lot that you're not scared of me."

Steve tilted his head curiously. "Are other people scared of you?"

She nodded. "Sometimes."

"Why?"

"Because of what I can do."

Steve frowned. "You're nice, though," he said. "And you don't wanna hurt anybody. Maybe those people that are scared just need to get to know you better."

Wanda huffed a soft laugh. "Sometimes, I'm not sure they want to."

Steve nodded sympathetically. "Well, _I_ want to," he told her.

Wanda smiled, blinking back a fresh wave of tears. She hadn't frightened him away after all. She wondered if he had any idea how very like his adult self he sounded. "Thank you," she said. "I'm very glad of that."

Steve smiled warmly. "So, what all do your powers do?" he asked, folding his hands in his lap. "Bucky said the other day you had something called tele…telekineestis, but I don't know what that means."

Wanda smiled. "Telekinesis. It means I can move things with my mind. Like this." She waved a hand at her hairbrush, and it floated up off her nightstand in a red glow.

"Wow!" Steve said, eyes wide. "That's so cool!"

Emboldened, Wanda lifted a few other things, and soon a shoe, a jacket and an empty cereal bowl were floating along with the brush, and Steve's mouth was hanging wide open in wonder.

"I can push things, too," Wanda explained, lowering the objects back to their resting places. "I can't show you in here, because it might break the window. But it's very handy in a fight. Or I can make shields." She nodded at the hairbrush. "Pick that up and throw it at me."

A little hesitantly, Steve picked up the hairbrush and threw it. He grinned in amazement as Wanda conjured up a shield and the brush bounced harmlessly off and landed on the mattress.

"That's awesome," he said. "Can you learn telekinesis, or were you born with it?"

"Well," Wanda said. "Neither one, really. I don't think it's something you can learn if you don't have it, but I wasn't born with it. It was…given to me a little while ago. I'm still learning how some of it works."

"Like what?" he wondered.

"Well, I have trouble lifting larger objects," she said. "It's not that they feel heavy, but they require more concentration." He nodded, following her logic. "And I'm working on lifting myself up, but that's tricky too."

"You mean like flying?" he asked in awe.

"Sort of," she corrected. "More like…jumping a long distance, or maybe hovering. It takes a lot of concentration, and I'm not very good at steering yet, but I'm practicing."

"That's so cool," Steve said.

Wanda looked at him curiously. There was something they'd been working on in training, though she hadn't come close to mastering it yet. This Steve was much smaller, though… "May I try something?" she asked. Steve nodded, and she focused her energy on him. He gasped as he started to rise up into the air, seated on a red swirl of energy.

"Whoa!" he said, looking around as if confirming that he was actually floating. He looked back at her with a grin spreading from ear to ear. "I'm flying!" he said.

"Yes, you are," she said, smiling back. She lifted him higher, until he was nearly at the ceiling, and once she was sure he was centered over the mattress, she let go. He dropped down and bounced on the mattress in a fit of delighted laughter.

"That was amazing!" he exclaimed, rolling around to sit up. "Can we do it again?"

* * *

_Turns out the little fella really isn't that different from the big one._ _Up next, Steve discovers TV, there is ice cream, and Tony learns that he is not immune to the warm fuzzies._


	3. Ice Cream And Warm Fuzzies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a team movie night!

* * *

After a long day in the lab of running tests and simulations, digging deep down into the microscopic data of scan results and blood tests, Tony was coming up with a whole lot of nothing. He knew science tended to take time, but not even having a lead was discouraging. Even F.R.I.D.A.Y. and Vision were striking out on the portal searching, though there was still a lot of internet to cover yet.

The sounds and smells of dinner were drifting down from the main kitchen as he left the lab for the night, but Tony was tired and out of sorts after an unfruitful day, and he was already in the elevator and heading up to his floor when he remembered a conversation from that morning. He had actually pulled the 'Not now, kid, I'm busy,' schtick on Steve. Never mind that the work he was doing was to help him, he had actually said those words—God help him, he was turning into his father! The elevator was headed back down before he was entirely conscious of pushing the button, his guilty conscience replaying the crushed look on Steve's face when Tony brushed him off.

Tony stepped back into the kitchen where some sort of baked potato buffet seemed to be going on.

"Steve, make sure you get some of that broccoli," Barnes was saying, gesturing to a dish at the end of the counter.

"I don't like broccoli," Steve protested.

"Yes, you do," Barnes said. "Future broccoli's good—it tastes a lot better than you remember."

Steve eyed the greenery skeptically.

"You want to grow up to be big and strong, don't you?" Natasha coaxed.

"I don't wanna be rude, Miss Natasha, but I'm pretty sure it was super-soldier serum that made me big and strong, not vegetables," Steve said.

Sam snorted at the comment, and Clint laughed and choked and almost dropped his plate. Tony chuckled as he walked into the kitchen. Kid had a point.

"Eat the broccoli, Steve," Barnes commanded.

"Fine," Steve sighed dramatically, scooping broccoli onto his plate.

"Hey, look who's out of the lab!" Sam declared as Tony approached the food.

"A genius has got to eat, you know," Tony replied, grabbing a potato.

"Hi, Mr. Tony!" Steve greeted from his seat at the table.

"Hey, there, Cap," he replied, wondering if it was still okay if he called him that. "How's it going?"

"Good," Steve said, and he didn't seem to mind the nickname. "Did you get a lot of work done?"

"I did," Tony said, heaping toppings onto his potato. He snagged a soda and dropped down into an empty seat. "But you know? I couldn't help spending all that time I was working thinking about that fort you guys were building." That wasn't entirely true, but he was hoping to get another invitation to play so he could make a point of accepting.

Steve grinned. "It's a pretty cool fort. We fought off the Frost Giants! Mr. Thor got froze, but he's better now." He paused to wrinkle his nose and take a bite of broccoli, though his expression softened as he chewed and swallowed. Apparently, it _did_ taste better than it did a century ago. "We did some other stuff this afternoon, but if you still wanna play, we could go back in the fort after dinner."

Tony smiled. "That sounds like fun." Something warmed in his heart as the kid grinned back happily. Natasha nodded across the table at him, smiling.

Having been in the lab for most of Tiny Steve's tininess, Tony wasn't sure if the lighter talk around the table was natural, or if it was an attempt to keep things a little more delicate for Steve. Whatever the reason, it was…It felt awfully domestic, but it was kind of nice. They hadn't hung out much as a group since Ultron, and there had been times where things felt kind of tense. No one was out-right blaming Tony, but he couldn't shake the feeling there was something there under the surface. They were getting past it, sure, but tonight was like it had never happened at all. It was nice.

As they all finished eating, Steve volunteered to cart all the dishes into the kitchen, and after a few minutes where he didn't come back, they peeked into the kitchen to see him on a stool by the sink, rinsing dishes as Thor washed. Thor was wearing a flowered apron that Tony didn't even know existed in his tower.

He made a move to go in and tell them there was a dishwasher, or even robots who could handle it, but a hand on his arm stopped him. He turned to see Barnes standing next to him. "Leave it," he instructed with a smile. He nodded into the kitchen. "They're having a good time." Steve was asking eager questions about traveling via BiFrost, and Thor was happily explaining the science behind it all.

Tony inclined his head in agreement. "It _is_ awfully cute," he said. He was momentarily struck by a flashback of a small version of himself, standing on a stool and washing dishes with Edwin Jarvis, chattering away about the mechanics of the radio he'd taken apart as Jarvis smiled encouragingly. He swallowed down a sudden knot in his throat and left Steve to his chatting with the Asgardian.

Once the dishes were clean, Steve took Tony on a tour of the fort, proudly explaining its construction and features. "Very nice," Tony said approvingly. "I like it."

Steve grinned. "Thanks. We worked real hard on it. What do you think we should play?"

Tony paused. He had no idea. It had been a long time since he'd been a kid. He considered, then a slow smile crept across his face. He wasn't quite sure what a kid Steve's age would play, but he knew just the kind of thing to do in a fort with all these pillows and blankets at this time of evening. "Well, I saw you had a pretty impressive hookup in there," he said. "What if we had ice cream and watched a movie?"

"I like movies," Steve said. He looked over the fort, confused. "Are we going to the movie theater? I thought we were gonna play in the fort."

Oh, that's right. Steve was a 20's kid. Tony's grin got even wider. "You mean to tell me you've been in the future for a day and a half and no one's told you what a TV is?"

Steve shook his head.

Tony chuckled. "Oh, you're gonna think this is so cool. Here, come with me." He led him to the other side of the living room where the TV was still sitting on its stand, though all the furniture that should have been facing it was part of the fort. "Picture a movie theater, but in your house." He picked up the remote and placed it in Steve's hand. "Point it at that and press the red button."

Steve did so, and his jaw dropped open as the TV came to life. "Whoa," he breathed.

"Right?" Tony said, even though it was just a cereal commercial. "Now, check this out." He reached over and hit the button to change the channel, and Steve gasped and dropped the remote as a hockey game appeared on screen.

"That's so cool!" he said. "It's like a little movie screen. And it's…" He grinned. "It's in _color_."

Tony laughed. "Yeah, it's in color. All kinds of colors. So, I was thinking, we move this into the fort." He pointed back at the pile of couches and pillows. "Grab some ice cream, and watch a movie. What do you say?"

"Yeah, let's do that!" Steve enthused.

While Tony worked on moving the TV, Barnes sent Steve back to his room to get a bath and change into his pajamas, since it would be late once the movie was over. "He's seriously like his dad," Tony said to Sam.

"Yeah, well, he's used to taking care of him. It's probably good for him," Sam said, and even though it was a little unclear which of them he thought it was good for, he was probably right.

Tony browsed his selection of movies that were kid-appropriate while Natasha and Clint scooped ice cream. He almost went with Lion King—always a classic—but then reconsidered as the thought struck him that Steve was currently essentially an orphan, and while he was still finding his footing probably wasn't the time to be throwing dead parents at him. That ruled out a good chunk of the Disney movies, actually, so he had F.R.I.D.A.Y. cue up the Lego Movie.

"I had not thought to say this of our Captain, but he is cute, is he not?" Thor asked as Steve came back into the kitchen. Tony blushed as he realized something in his expression must have prompted Thor to say so, but he nodded. The kid was freaking adorable.

"It's the dinosaur pajamas," Tony said. "It's hard not to be cute in dinosaur pajamas." He wasn't sure how he'd ended up with those. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had taken measurements to get clothes for him, but Tony hadn't specified what she should get (Except for a couple of Captain America t-shirts. Tiny Cap in a Cap shirt? Couldn't pass that up.). There was a sense of fashion in the A.I.'s programming, or maybe it had something to do with Pepper's input, because the only way it could have been cuter was if the dinosaur pajamas were also footie pajamas, or maybe if the shirt had a hood with a little dinosaur face on it.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to have ice cream before bed?" Steve asked, keeping back from the ice cream until given explicit permission to take a bowl.

"It's not bedtime _yet_ ," Barnes pointed out. "And you're only getting a little bit."

"Can I put strawberries on it?" he asked quietly, eyeing the fruit Natasha was cutting up.

"I'm cutting them up just for you," she said.

"For me?" he asked, surprised.

"Yep. Bring your bowl over here."

Steve stepped forward, the ice cream in his bowl enough for his larger self to have finished in about three bites. His jaw dropped as Natasha deposited a heaping pile of strawberries on top of the frozen treat. "That's all for me?"

"It sure is. Strawberry's your favorite, right?"

"It is," Steve said, looking like he was trying very hard not to start drooling with anticipation. "But…" He looked up, more self-control on his little face than Tony had been able to muster in a while. "I don't want to take it all. I can share."

Natasha smiled warmly, reaching a hand down to ruffle his hair. "That's very thoughtful, Steve. But there's plenty more up here. You go ahead and enjoy those."

Steve beamed. "Thanks, Miss Natasha," he said in awe.

She stared after him as he followed Bucky to the fort, shaking her head. "I'm gonna call him 'sweetheart' one of these days," she sighed. "It's getting harder not to."

"He's got that effect, doesn't he?" Tony agreed, heaping chocolate sauce and M&M's onto his own ice cream. He noted that there was nary a bowl of peanuts or peanut butter-based treats in sight. Good. They could always eat that when the little guy wasn't around.

It was cozy inside the fort, and if not for the fact that there was a kid there, Tony might have felt a little silly, sitting in a pillow fort with his knees up against Barnes's. Though they had made an impressively large fort, there were a lot of them, so space was a little tight—Steve was sitting in Barnes's lap, Tony was sort of leaning on Thor, and Natasha was snuggled up against Clint. They all laughed along with the movie, especially whenever Steve would let out a burst of delighted laughter. Filled with ice cream and strawberries and warm and content, he shifted back against Barnes's chest with a sleepy sigh as they entered the final third of the movie. Barnes got up after a little while to get a drink, and Steve automatically crawled over into Tony's lap when he left. Tony looked down at him in surprise, but Steve didn't look up, merely curling up to get comfortable and leaning his head back on Tony's arm.

Tony wasn't sure what that was he was feeling, but it was kind of nice, and he smiled down fondly at the mop of blond hair and patted Steve's arm. Barnes smiled when he came back in, but shook his head when Tony nodded that he could take Steve back. When the movie was over and Steve did not start getting up with everyone else, Tony realized why.

"He's asleep," he whispered.

"Yeah," Barnes said. "That's why I didn't want to move him."

"He's asleep," Tony said again.

"It's very sweet," Wanda said, staring at the two of them with a sappy smile.

"He's asleep!" Tony said again.

"Why are you panicking?" Clint asked.

"I'm not panicking."

"Yes, you are," Natasha said.

"Okay, maybe a little," Tony conceded. "Captain America is asleep on my lap. I don't know what to do with that."

Barnes chuckled. "Just hang tight and we'll make an opening or something so you can stand up." He and Thor crawled outside and started moving one of the couches that made up the roof of the section they were in.

Steve sniffed and shifted, and Tony instinctively put a hand to the side of his head, covering his ear like he could shield him from the noise and patting his hair gently.

"Don't know what to do with that, huh?" Sam chuckled.

"Shut up, Wilson." Still. There was something…Tony didn't quite have the words for it, but there was something in the fact that Steve trusted him enough to fall asleep on him. Not that he didn't think Steve trusted him. Steve's trust in Tony's judgement might have been shaken during the Ultron incident, but Tony knew his trust in him as a person hadn't. And even what he had lost, it hadn't taken a long time to get it back. Steve was just like that. He offered chances where others wouldn't, never giving up his faith in your ability to become a better person, and something about that made you want to actually _be_ a better person, and…

Tony shook his head. Look at him, getting all sappy over here, and just because the kid had fallen asleep in his lap. He was little and it was past his bedtime—he would have fallen asleep in anybody's lap. But he hadn't. He'd picked Tony. And that made Tony feel good, like someone had that little bit of faith in him. The way Cap was so good at making him feel.

"Alright, Steve," he said softly, cradling Steve's head against his chest with one hand and securing his grip on him with the other. He stood up in the space Barnes and Thor had created, edging out through the break in the wall. "Time for America's tiniest hero to go to bed." Steve nuzzled his head into the space between Tony's chin and shoulder with a sleepy sigh, and Tony pushed down the urge to plant a soft kiss on his head.

Barnes moved into Steve's room ahead of him and turned the covers of the bed down. Tony lowered him down to the mattress carefully, and Steve hugged a pillow to his chest and yawned and stretched, sleeping on. Tony just managed to stop himself again from kissing his forehead as he pulled the blanket up over him, and Natasha was right, what was that with the kid?

He reached down a hand and gently smoothed down his hair, brushing it away from his face. "Goodnight, Steve," he said softly.

* * *

_So, Steve has learned that you can enjoy a movie in the comfort of your own home, and Tony might just have the makings of a good dad after all._

_Up next, Steve has a bad day, and Sam, Thor and Bucky are all over that, because their little Captain is never going to be sad on their watch. Thor even sings a song._


	4. Some Days, You Just Need A Hug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little Steve is too smart for his own good, which brings him to a troubling realization and a rough day. Lucky for him, Sam is a very thoughtful guy, Thor's lap is the perfect size for comforting snuggles, and Bucky has just the right words to make the little guy feel better.

* * *

Bucky had woken up with Steve wrapped around his torso again, and decided that maybe having his own room wasn't what Steve needed at this point. Steve wasn't embarrassed about ending up in Bucky's bed again—which was good, because that wasn't what Bucky was going for—but he was quick to agree with the idea of moving his bed into Bucky's room. Bucky was strong enough to move the bed over on his own, while Steve followed with a pile of blankets and pillows, looking impressed by Bucky's strength.

"Was I really that strong?" Steve wondered as they remade his bed.

"You were actually stronger," Bucky said.

"I wonder what Ma thought of me being all big and everything," Steve said thoughtfully, and an uncomfortable knot formed in Bucky's throat. Sarah Rogers had not yet been brought up, and Bucky was really hoping Steve would get big again before he had to explain to a nine-year-old that his mom was dead—had died, in fact, without ever seeing him grow tall and strong. It would seem he was just thinking out loud, though, not actually asking Bucky what his ma had thought, because he kept going and asked, "Do you have a picture of big me? Maybe I look like my pop."

"Yeah, I got a picture somewhere," Bucky said, glad the subject had shifted. He pulled out his phone and found a picture of Steve from a couple weeks back.

"Wow," Steve said, leaning in to study the picture. "That's really me?" Bucky nodded. "I'm huge!"

Bucky chuckled.

"I'll bet Billy Gillepsie would never try and take my lunch if he knew I was gonna grow up to look like that."

"Probably not," Bucky agreed, though he didn't remember which one Billy Gillepsie was.

Steve studied the picture a little longer, then nodded to himself and went to get dressed. He seemed to be mulling over something, so Bucky left him to his thoughts while they went and got some cereal.

"So," Natasha said as he sat down. "We might have something on portal guy. You up for a quick mission?" She shot a significant look in Steve's direction, asking if Bucky was okay leaving him here. "I could use you on this one."

"Where's the lead?" Bucky asked. He had fewer qualms about leaving Steve for a day trip than he did if they were hopping somewhere international.

"Connecticut," she replied. "Quick hop in the Quinjet. We'll be back before dinner."

Bucky looked down at Steve, who wasn't really paying attention, still thinking over whatever he was thinking over while he ate his cornflakes. "Hey, Stevie?" he asked, nudging Steve's arm when Steve didn't respond.

"Huh?" Steve said.

"Would you be okay with me leaving you here for a little while?" he asked. "Natasha thinks she's got a lead on the guy who turned you little, so me and her are gonna go check it out. Would you be okay with staying here with Thor and Sam until I get back at dinner time?"

"Oh. Okay," Steve said. "Yeah, that's alright." His eyebrows furrowed a little. "You'll be careful, right?"

"We will," Bucky assured him.

"Okay," Steve said again.

Bucky was still hesitant to leave the little guy, but he'd gotten more comfortable with the rest of the group, and if he and Natasha could catch the portal guy, then maybe they could get this whole thing fixed. He checked in with everyone who was going to be around the Tower, and they all were fine with keeping an eye on Steve.

"The kitchen has a list of his allergies," Bucky told Sam. "And I really don't feel comfortable with Stark doing more testing on him or anything while I'm not here, so if that comes up, let's just postpone it. And—"

"Dude," Sam cut him off with a smirk. "We'll be fine. Go track this guy down. We're good here."

"We are," Steve assured him from where he stood next to Sam. "And I'll be real good. I promise."

Bucky chuckled. "You? Good?"

Steve straightened up primly. "I'm a Brooklyn angel," he said, which was something his mom used to say. Bucky laughed at that, and Steve smiled. "Be careful," Steve said, giving him a hug.

"I will," Bucky said, hugging him back. "I'll miss you, buddy."

Steve hugged him a little tighter, then let go, and Bucky stepped into the elevator to head for the jet.

* * *

Sam had never thought he'd be in the position of baby-sitting Captain America, but here he was. Steve was quieter today than he had been the past couple days, and Bucky had mentioned earlier that he had something on his mind, though he didn't know what. Steve always had been a deep thinker, and Sam wondered what kind of stuff nine-year-old Steve thought deeply about. He tried testing the waters and asking what was on his mind, but Steve just shrugged and said, "Just stuff," and Sam figured he should let it lie for a while.

"Oh, hey, before I forget, I got you something," Sam said.

"You did?" Steve asked curiously.

"Yeah." Sam reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a book. "You mentioned yesterday that you never got to finish this one, so I tracked down a copy." He held out a small paperback version of _The Midnight Folk_.

Steve reached up and took the book gingerly, staring in awe at the picture of the little boy flying through the night sky on the cover. His blue eyes were shining when he looked up at Sam. "You remembered I said that and you got me this?"

"Yeah," Sam said, shrugging one shoulder. Besides it just being a nice thing to do, he'd figured it might help Steve bridge the gap between past and present that he was faced with. "I hate leaving a book in the middle," he added with a smile.

He grunted in surprise as Steve flung his arms around him awfully forcefully for someone so small, knocking his breath out in a rush. "Thanks, Mr. Sam," Steve mumbled into his stomach, hugging him tightly.

"You're welcome, Steve," Sam said, a little surprised by the sudden embrace, but touched. He patted Steve's hair with a smile.

After a minute, Steve tilted his head up. "That was really nice of you," he said, smiling softly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sam said again, not really sure what else to say. "I hope it's good."

Steve pulled back and looked down at the book again, clutching it with both hands. "Is it okay if I go and read it now?"

"Sure," Sam said. He patted him on the shoulder. "Read away. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks." Steve took the book and headed for the living room, settling down onto one of the couches that was back in its proper place. Sam watched him for a minute to make sure he was alright, then headed for the kitchen table and the mission report he was supposed to have filed a week ago. He got up every now and then to stick his head into the room and check on Steve, who was in a different position every time he looked, but remained absorbed in the book.

* * *

Thor made for the kitchen, seeking out Sam and Steve. He had agreed to help Sam in minding Steve until Bucky returned, but had gotten distracted by a philosophical discussion with the Vision. He found Sam alone at the kitchen table, working on a report.

"Where is our young charge?" Thor asked.

"He's been reading all morning," Sam said, nodding in the direction of the living room. "When I checked on him a couple minutes ago, he was draped over the arm of the couch reading upside down."

Thor chuckled. "There is a certain flexibility in ones so small."

Sam smiled in agreement, then looked down at his watch. "I should get started on lunch. You want to go let him know we'll eat soon?"

Thor nodded and moved into the living room. Steve must have shifted positions yet again, for he saw no one, but then a small sniffling sound caught his ears. He turned to find the source of the noise, and after a moment, his eyes landed on Steve, curled up into a small ball against the cushions at one end of the couch, his book on the floor beside him. Alarmed, as he had been well when Sam checked on him minutes ago, Thor crossed the room quickly, asking, "Are you alright?" Steve jumped a little, unaware he was not alone.

"I'm fine," Steve said quickly, dashing a hand across his nose. He appeared uninjured, though moisture glimmered in his bright blue eyes.

"I don't believe you are," Thor said gently, stepping closer. He stopped near the couch and knelt beside it, aware that his size would easily be intimidating to one so small. "What troubles you?"

Steve sniffed again. "It…It's silly," he said softly, clearly wishing to unburden himself but embarrassed to do so.

"I doubt that," Thor said warmly.

Steve was silent for a moment. "I miss my ma," he whispered.

Thor nodded in understanding. For a child so young, any great length of time away from one's mother was a hardship, as Thor remembered well. How much more so it must be for his Captain right now, whose memory placed him home and at his mother's side one moment and standing in a world of monsters and strangers the next. "That does not sound silly to me," he said kindly.

Steve did not smile, but a spark of gratitude flickered behind the tears in his eyes, and he continued speaking a bit more quickly. "It's just…" He sniffled again. "It's not just 'cause she's not here. I mean, it kind of is, but it's also…Well, Bucky told me how we're in the future now and everything."

Thor nodded. He and all the others, once they recovered from their initial shock of seeing their Captain transformed into a child, had been amazed at how easily he trusted Bucky and everything he told him. Thor knew they had been great friends for a long time, but this was more—this was the bond of brotherhood between them, something that allowed Steve, even with his memory of most of his life gone, to know that Bucky was safe and worthy of trust.

"And I was thinking…" Steve continued. His small voice had begun to wobble. "It's a really long time from 1927 to 2015. And I realized that means that…" He sniffed and wiped his nose again. "It means that…" He swallowed hard, as if frightened to say what came next. "It means that she's dead now," he whispered, and one of the tears pooling in his eyes escaped and trickled down his cheek.

Thor's heart ached at the pain in his young friend's face. Of course Steve's mother was dead—Thor knew she had been for many years—but no one had said so to young Steve. He knew they all hoped the situation could be remedied soon, and why bring up something that would be so painful for a child when he might soon be restored to the man who had made his peace with it?

"And I…" Steve continued shakily. "'Cause I don't remember anything after being nine, I don't know how much time I lost with her, or if she was all worried about me when I got frozen and didn't come home, and…I didn't get to say goodbye. I didn't know the last time I kissed her goodnight would be the last time I saw her," he finished in a tiny, broken voice.

"Oh, Steve," Thor murmured. He got up from where he was kneeling on the floor and moved to sit on the couch beside him. The small boy immediately curled against his side, and Thor's arm moved to wrap around him. "I am sorry, my friend," he said. Knowing condolences mattered little when one felt so sorrowful, Thor drew in a deep breath and continued. "I understand how you are feeling."

"You do?" Steve asked quietly, looking up with watery eyes.

"I do." Thor rarely spoke about this with anyone, but now seemed an opportune time. "My mother is also dead," he said softly.

"Really?"

Thor nodded. "And like you, I was not there when it happened. Like you…" He paused to draw in a deep breath. "I did not get to say goodbye." His mother had been taken too swiftly for that.

Steve was staring at him with wide eyes. "What did you do?" he whispered.

Thor smiled sadly, knowing the boy was not asking how he sought his vengeance—among so many grown men, heroes and warriors, Steve feared showing weakness and was seeking permission to mourn. "I shed many tears that day," Thor told him honestly. "That day, and in the days that followed. Even now, sometimes, the sorrow strikes me still. Yes, I cried. I raged. I mourned." He pulled his arm in a little tighter around the boy. "There is no shame in grief, my young Captain. There is nothing unmanly in tears," he told him. The boy was losing his battle with them, and Thor found he was having trouble keeping his own in check, looking upon that small, sad face. "Allow them to flow," he said. "Sorrow builds up swiftly in the heart if not allowed to escape. There is healing in tears."

Steve held his gaze a moment longer before his face crumpled completely and he began to weep, no longer trying to hold any of it back. Thor pulled the boy up into his lap and wrapped his arms around him, cradling his head against his chest, and Steve latched on to the front of his shirt, clenching it tightly in his tiny fists. Thor made soothing noises and stroked his hair, saying nothing, merely allowing his friend a safe place for his grief. And if he felt his own mother's hands on his shoulders, if he allowed some few tears of his own to fall, well, what of it?

Thor was uncertain of how long they had sat there, though it could not have been long, when he sensed someone behind them and turned his head enough to see Sam standing in the doorway, looking worried. Thor nodded, acknowledging that all was not well, but he smiled and inclined his head to say that he was attending to it. Sam was, of course, well-equipped to handle such a moment, but Steve did not need an audience for his sorrow. Sam nodded in understanding and backed out, though concern still shone in his eyes.

Steve's sobs grew quieter, though silent tears were still soaking through the front of Thor's shirt. "Did your mother sing to you?" Thor asked. Steve sniffled and nodded against his chest. Thor smiled. "My mother would sing to me too," he said. "I loved it best when she sang songs of the sea." Thor cleared his throat and began singing gently, ancient Asgardian words that spun images of waves and seafoam, ships sailing in the mist, and creatures of the sea dancing in the deep. Though Thor had never had his mother's skill for magic, there was power yet in the words—power to soothe the troubled soul, and to calm a frightened child. There had been nights when Thor, mighty warrior and god of thunder, had lain trembling in fear of the dark. These words and his mother's gentle hand had brought him peace, and the words worked their magic still as Thor sang them over his Captain and felt the small body in his arms cease its trembling.

The song ended, and they sat in silence for a moment. Thor continued his gentle stroking of Steve's hair. Steve shifted in his arms, saying nothing, but relaxing from his tense curl of sorrow. Thor moved his hand from Steve's head to his back, drawing soothing circles with his fingers. "Has your mother been on your mind of late?" Thor asked gently, hoping to discern what had steered his thoughts this way.

Steve nodded. "I was thinkin' about her today." He sniffed and wiped his nose. "I was wonderin' what she thought of me being all big and everything, and then I just kept thinkin' about her." He was quiet a moment. "I started to figure how maybe she was dead, and I didn't want to think about it, and then Mr. Sam gave me this book, so I was reading it and I felt better. But the boy in the book…He starts talkin' about his ma near the end, and it just made me think about _my_ ma again, and…" His voice started to waver and he trailed off.

Thor nodded.

"I'm sorry for cryin' all over you," Steve whispered in a tiny voice.

"Do not be," Thor said. He reached down a hand to tilt Steve's head up to look at him. "As I said, there is nothing unmanly in tears. Each man will grieve many times as he goes through life. To mourn loss is a natural thing. There are none here who would mock you for it."

Steve gave him a watery smile. "Thanks," he whispered.

Thor smiled back and patted his back. "Of course. You can come and sit with me any time, should you feel the need. You can weep, or speak to me of your mother, and I can sing you songs of Asgard, if you do not object to this voice of mine." A small laugh escaped Steve's throat, and Thor smiled warmly at the smile that grew on his small face.

"But for now, if things are well at present…" He paused to seek confirmation in Steve's face. "Then I think Sam has prepared lunch. Let us go and wash. You will feel better, I think, for washing your face."

Steve nodded, and slid off of Thor's lap, though one of his hands slid down and twined its little fingers through Thor's. Thor squeezed the small hand gently and led him to get cleaned up.

* * *

Bucky sighed, running a hand back through his damp hair. He'd just gotten out of the shower and slipped into a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and really wanted nothing more than to flop down on his bed and fall asleep and see if things just got better tomorrow. Today had just been a mess on all counts.

The mission with Natasha hadn't gone well. There had been no portal guy, but there had been a generic mad scientist who made something similar enough to the portals that it was easy to see how their informant had gotten confused. There'd been a fight, and they'd won, but Bucky was sore and in a bad mood that they'd flown all the way out there for nothing. Especially after having heard about the kind of day Steve had.

Thor and Sam had discreetly filled him in on Steve's morning revelation and breakdown, and Bucky would have been lying if he'd said he hadn't seen it coming. He felt guilty for being gone while it happened, and he felt even worse for not having said something to Steve in the first place. He wasn't sure what kind of groundwork he could have laid for a conversation like that, but he felt like he'd just lied to his face by keeping it from him.

According to the reports, Steve hadn't cried again for the rest of the day, but he'd been quiet and clingy. Sam and Thor had done a pretty good job of keeping his mind otherwise occupied, and when Bucky had gotten back and been filled in, he'd checked in with Steve, and Steve had smiled sadly and said he understood and wasn't mad at Bucky for not saying anything. The kicker was, Bucky figured he was probably telling the truth. Steve had always been way too smart for his own good—which had led him to his distressing discovery today, and he'd always been too forgiving for his own good too. In ninety-six years, the only grudge Bucky could think of Steve ever holding was against Hydra. He knew Steve wasn't mad at him. Didn't mean he didn't still feel like a heel, though.

So, yeah, he was tired and sore and not feeling awesome, but Steve had had a crappy day too, and he didn't have the coping mechanisms he'd developed as he got older. Bucky could hardly go to sleep and just leave the little guy to fend for himself. And maybe if he could do something to make him feel better, it would help assuage the guilt swirling around in his chest.

Steve was quiet at dinner, and mostly just picked at his food. When he was done eating, he climbed over into Bucky's lap, and seemed content to just sit there and listen to everyone else talk. The conversation stuck with lighter topics—the main mission right now was figuring out how to get Adult Steve back, and though no one was saying so explicitly, it was currently striking out in both the lab and the field. Everyone was trying to keep their hopes up, though, and it was a reasonably cheerful dinner, all things considered.

There had been some kind of baseball game on after dinner, but Bucky couldn't get into it, and Steve didn't seem particularly interested either—and Bucky knew the kid had to still be pretty down in the dumps to not be interested in baseball. He stayed curled up in Bucky's lap the whole time, one hand wrapped around Bucky's metal arm, and he just nodded when Bucky suggested maybe it was time for bed.

Steve went and got a bath, and Bucky sat on his bed and stared at the wall and tried to figure out what he should say. He didn't want to upset him again, but everything wasn't alright right now. He had to say _something_.

He did have to smile when Steve padded out of the bathroom, his damp hair sticking out every which way after some over-enthusiastic toweling. "Hey, kiddo," he said. "You doing okay?"

"Uh huh," Steve said.

"Come sit up here with me a minute, will you?" Bucky asked, patting the mattress next to him. Steve did so, looking up at Bucky expectantly. Bucky sighed. "Look, I…I'm sorry about today. I should have told you about your ma. And I should have been here to help you through it."

Steve smiled at him sadly. "Bucky, I'm not mad at you. S'okay. And I was alright today. Mr. Thor was really nice. He talked to me for a while and said it was okay if I cried."

"It is okay," Bucky affirmed. "You know nobody's gonna mind if you do, right?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah. I still don't like to, though."

Bucky smiled gently. "Well, sure. Nobody _likes_ to cry."

That got a tiny smile out of Steve. "I feel better right now. But I figure I'll get sad about it again. And…" He scooted over closer to Bucky and leaned over on his arm. "I can come cry with you if I need to, right?"

Bucky slung an arm around him and hugged him. "Of course you can. Any time. And if you need to talk about your ma, I remember her. We can talk about her together."

Another tiny smile. "Thanks."

They sat there for a couple of minutes, but Bucky could still see the wheels turning under Steve's messy mop of hair. "Is something else bothering you?" he wondered.

An expression flitted across Steve's face that said he didn't want to lie and say 'no', but he was nervous about coming out and saying whatever it was. Steve was usually pretty candid with him, so Bucky figured it had to be something that he was worried would upset him. "I'm not gonna make you talk if you don't want to," he said. "But whatever it is, I won't get mad at you for it."

Steve considered for a moment, then sighed and wriggled out from under Bucky's arm and climbed up onto his lap again. He leaned his head back against Bucky's chest and tilted his face up to look at him. "I'm sorry I messed everything up," he said softly.

"Messed everything up? What do you mean?" Bucky asked.

"'Cause of what happened," Steve elaborated, not really explaining anything. "Me getting little and all."

Bucky took a moment to replay the statement. "You're apologizing for being a kid? Stevie, that's not your fault."

"Yeah, but…" Steve trailed off, not having the words he wanted to explain with. "Everybody's all been real nice to me. I'm not saying they haven't. I just…I'm s'posed to be big. And I can tell everybody's worried about it. They miss Grownup Steve. You all want your friend back. I'm sorry I'm not him," he finished quietly.

Something in Bucky's heart ached at the way Steve said that. "Aw, Stevie…"

"It's okay," Steve said. "I mean, you know, you were friends with Little Me when you were little, but then you grew up, and I grew up, and you're more used to Big Me now, and that's okay. I'm just…I'm sorry I'm the wrong one."

A knot twisted up in Bucky's throat that he had to swallow down before he could speak. Big or little, Steve had often had trouble fitting in, but especially when he'd been little. He'd been sickly and scrawny and easily pushed aside, often on the outskirts of the other kids playing, not quite good enough to be included. He'd always had Bucky, though, and it killed Bucky a little bit to realize that Steve thought maybe he didn't anymore.

"Can I tell you something?" Bucky asked after he'd gathered what he hoped were the right words. Steve had given him a similar speech to the one he was pulling together when Bucky had been worried about being too damaged to be worth saving, and the words had fixed something deep inside Bucky's soul. It was his turn to be the strong one now, and he hoped the words would do the same for his friend.

Steve nodded.

"Big Steve isn't my friend," Bucky said.

Steve's eyes went wide in surprise.

"You know who is my friend?" Bucky asked, before Steve could extrapolate that statement off in the wrong direction. "Steve," he said simply. "Steve Rogers is my friend. Doesn't matter what adjective you stick on the front. It could be Big Steve, Little Steve, Old Steve, Short Steve, Fat Steve, Hairy Steve, hell, it could be Alien Steve and it wouldn't matter. The first word can be any old word as long as the second one is Steve." He smiled warmly as Steve stared up at him in awe.

"You," he said, touching a finger to his nose. "Are my friend. Because you're Steve. And Steve is very important to me. And yes, I'm not gonna lie, I do miss the grownup version of you. But I don't want you to think for one second that that means you're not important. Because you are an awesome person just the way you are. Big you or little you, I feel lucky to call you my best friend."

Steve shifted a little uncomfortably. "Even if…Even if they can't figure out how to make me big again?"

Bucky smiled. "Yes. Even then. Because what makes Steve so special—what makes him so important to me—is all in here." He poked a finger into Steve's chest. "So, if you end up staying nine, I still haven't lost the Steve I care about. You're enough, Steve. Just how you are. You don't need to be a big, strong hero, or even a grownup, for me to care about you. You're always going to be enough. And I'm always going to be right here. 'Til the end of the line."

Tears were pooling in Steve's little blue eyes, but he was smiling. "Thanks," he said softly, then he wrapped his arms around Bucky's chest and buried his face in his shirt and hugged him as tight as his skinny arms could manage, and Bucky hugged him back. They'd all gotten caught up in trying to fix this, and they hadn't really stopped to think how Steve would take it. Yes, Bucky did want grownup Steve back, but it was true what he'd said to Natasha on that first day, and to Steve just now. This little guy was still Steve. He was still alive, still safe and still here. Still just as important to Bucky as the big one.

Steve shifted so his face wasn't buried in Bucky's shirt, looking up and giving Bucky a watery, but genuine smile. "I love you, Bucky," he whispered. "I'm glad you're still here."

Another lump of emotion twisted up in Bucky's throat again, and he didn't think he could say anything, so he hugged him tighter and leaned down and rested his head on top of Steve's for a minute. "I love you too, Stevie," he said softly. "I'm glad you're here too."

* * *

_Steve takes good care of his team, and they take good care of him. The little guy's going to be alright._

_Up next, the team takes Steve out to explore some of the future, and Steve discovers Legos and Cherry Dr. Pepper._


	5. The Library And The Lego Store

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for Steve to get out of the house and see some of the future. First up, the library, and then, in the words of Robin Sparkles, "Let's go to the mall!"

* * *

A good night's sleep had done Steve good, though he was still a little clingy the next morning. He stayed wrapped up in one of his blankets like a little burrito and sat in Bucky's lap for breakfast, though he did smile, and he even laughed at one of the jokes Sam told.

"You know what we should do?" Bucky said, looking down at Steve. Steve was doing better today, but he could use distracting. Steve looked up at him curiously. "We should go out and do something. This is, what, your fourth day in the future? We should go see some of it."

"Like what?" Steve wondered.

Bucky shrugged. "Just check some stuff out. We could go for a walk, get some lunch, maybe hit the park or something."

"There's always the library," Natasha put in. "Since you finished your book and all."

"Ooh, we should go to the mall!" Clint said. "The Lego Store is having a thing this week, and the food court is all full of these awesome things that people built."

"Count me in!" Sam said.

"What's Legos?" Steve asked.

"Legos are the best," Sam replied. "They're little bricks that stick together, and you can build all kinds of cool stuff out of them. You know what? We're gonna go to the Lego thing, and we're gonna look at the cool stuff, and we're gonna get you some."

"May I accompany you?" Thor asked. "I do enjoy Earth outings when there are no perilous missions involved."

"Sure, you can come," Steve said.

Thor grinned. "Thank you. And perhaps, since lunch was mentioned, might we partake of some fried chicken? The royal chefs on Asgard have never been able to master the recipe, and it is one of my favorite Earth foods."

"Fried chicken's not hard," Clint protested.

"It is rather difficult when one's planet does not contain chickens," Thor pointed out.

Bucky smiled as Steve asked what Asgard had instead of chickens, and Thor launched into a description of Asgardian livestock. He got the feeling Thor liked talking about his home as much as Steve enjoyed hearing about it.

Their first stop was the library. Bucky did wonder as they all got out in the parking lot just why Stark's garage had a minivan for them in the first place—it really didn't seem like his style. "Whoa, this place is huge!" Steve said. "There's gotta be so many books here!"

"Oh, they've got tons of books," Natasha said. "Come on." She took Steve's hand and started leading him inside. "What kind of books do you like to read?"

Steve's jaw dropped again once they got inside. Signs pointed them to the children's wing, and they spent some time wandering the aisles. Clint and Sam got into an argument about what they should recommend to Steve—Harry Potter nearly won out, until Sam pointed out that after yesterday, maybe they should steer away from books where the kid's parents die for a little while. Thor was watching the colorful fish in the large tank in the middle, and Natasha and Bucky were watching Steve as he inspected the books.

Clint and Sam finally reached an agreement on suggestions for Steve, though he'd already found a few of his own by the time they got there. Natasha used her library card to check out his stack of books, as well as the entire Harry Potter series that Thor decided he should read even if Steve wasn't going to.

The books were deposited into the trunk and they headed for the mall. It was a little early for lunch yet, so they walked around some and just let Steve take in the sights. It was a little crowded for Bucky's tastes, but he tried to focus on the group and their outing and the awed look on Steve's face as he stared around at all the glass and sleek metal—Bucky had gotten used to it by now, but the future _was_ awfully shiny.

It was a little crowded for Steve's tastes too, judging by the way he clung tightly to Bucky's hand and hung closely to his side, though he grinned excitedly and happily accepted when Thor offered to let him ride on his shoulders so he could see above the crowd. They had to stop then and let Natasha take a picture, and Bucky was going to have to get her to send it to him, because that was awfully cute.

Clint suggested they check out a toy store, under the pretense that he needed to get something for his daughter's birthday. Steve looked happy that someone else had suggested it—not that he would argue he was too old for toys, but Bucky knew he didn't want to seem overly childish. The sheer array of things that were available seemed to overwhelm him somewhat, but he looked at everything in awe and was utterly delighted by the flying helicopter toy that Clint was demonstrating. He insisted that it was exciting enough to look and that he didn't want anything, but when Nat and Thor took him out of the store, Bucky wasn't the only one hanging back to buy something.

They caught up with the rest of them a few stores down in a Bath and Bodyworks store. "Bucky!" Steve exclaimed when he spotted him. He pointed eagerly at the candle in Thor's hand. "Smell this candle! It smells like Christmas!" Thor handed the candle over, and it did have a cinnamon, minty sort of smell that brought Christmas to mind.

"What do you think, Steve?" Natasha asked, lifting up a light purple candle for him to smell. "You think Wanda will like this one?"

Steve leaned down from his perch on Thor's shoulders and sniffed experimentally. "It smells like the park when the flowers start blooming." He wrinkled his nose. "It's nice, but I feel like it should make me sneeze."

Natasha laughed. "Okay. So maybe not that one."

"What magic do your Earth candlemakers use?" Thor wondered as Natasha replaced the purple candle on a shelf. "How does one capture the scent of the woods so exactly?" He eyed the dark green candle in his hand suspiciously.

"Are we really hanging out and just sniffing candles?" Sam asked.

"This happens every time Nat comes to the mall," Clint told him. "Just let her do her thing."

Steve had evidently been instructed not to touch the candles, because he leaned in and sniffed one of the ones on the higher shelf, but did not pick up the glass jar. "Miss Natasha, how about this one? It smells like apples. I think Miss Wanda would like that."

"Is it Wanda's birthday?" Bucky asked Clint quietly, wondering if he had forgotten.

"I don't think so," Clint said.

"No," Natasha replied. "I just thought it might be nice to get her something for her room. She doesn't have a lot of personal stuff yet. That is a nice one, Steve," she said, looking up at him. "Let's get her that one."

"Even though it's not her birthday, do you think they could wrap it up pretty for her?" he asked. "Since it's a present."

"I'll ask at the desk," Natasha said with a smile, moving toward the register.

"Hey, Mr. Thor," Steve said, patting the top of Thor's head. "Where did that laundry candle go? I want to show it to Bucky."

"A laundry candle?" Bucky asked skeptically. That sounded…weird. A quick glance over at Sam told him that, yes, that was not a normal smell for a candle.

"I believe it was this one," Thor said, picking up a white candle.

"Smell it, Bucky," Steve said. "It's really neat."

Tentatively, Bucky took the candle from Thor and sniffed. It…Okay, that was weird. It smelled like fresh laundry, sort of a cotton-y, sunshine kind of smell. It was really nice, actually. "That _is_ nice," he said, passing the candle to Sam, who still looked cynical.

"Oh, yeah," Sam agreed.

"I like that one," Steve said. "There's other really nice ones that smell like cookies and gingerbread, but I think you'd get hungry smelling that all the time."

"Probably so," Bucky agreed.

"Alright, we have Wanda's candle," Natasha said, walking back to join them. "I did get them to wrap it for her, Steve," she added, holding up the bag she was carrying. Bucky spotted a little glint of shiny paper in the top. "Lunch?"

"Yes! To lunch!" Thor agreed excitedly.

They entered the food court from the end opposite the Lego display and decided to get something to eat first before getting into all of that. Not everyone wanted fried chicken, but Steve happily went with Thor to get some and Bucky followed. "I haven't had fried chicken in a long time," Steve declared. He looked down at Bucky. "Hey, you remember Mrs. Peterson's chicken that she would always bring to the church picnics? That was really good."

"Oh, yeah," Bucky agreed. "But you always wanted to watch out for Mrs. Delancy's chicken, remember?"

"Blech!" Steve said, shaking his head with a grimace and making Bucky laugh. In Mrs. Delancy's presence, Steve had been much more polite regarding her chicken, but that did just about sum it up.

They all got a table together with their assorted meals, and Steve dug into his fried chicken almost as eagerly as Thor. Feeling adventurous, he had requested a cherry Dr. Pepper with his meal, knowing only that it was a kind of soda and that he liked cherries. The way his eyes lit up when he took his first sip told Bucky a new addiction had just been born.

After lunch, they made their way to the Lego display. Steve walked this time, though he kept hold of Bucky's hand.

"Alright," Clint said. He held out a hand proudly. "These are Legos." He gestured to an intricate model of a ship that it took Bucky a moment to realize was made up of thousands of tiny plastic pieces.

"That's really neat," Steve said.

"See, it's little pieces like this," Clint said, picking a couple of little bricks up off a nearby table of loose pieces. "And you can snap them together and take them apart." He clicked the little pieces together to demonstrate.

Steve watched in interest, then turned back to the ship. After a moment, his jaw dropped. "Somebody made this out of those?" he breathed. He drifted closer, and it looked like it took some self-control to heed the signs warning him not touch. "That's so many little pieces!"

"Isn't it awesome?" Sam said, leaning in. "Look, they even put little lights on it and everything."

Steve spent a while poring over the ship, then Natasha pointed out another sculpture, this one of a castle. They wandered around the display for a while, inspecting each piece and the signs next to them detailing the number of pieces and hours of work that had gone into them. There was a life-sized creation that Bucky recognized as Darth Vader, and he chuckled when Sam tried not to get visibly offended that Steve wasn't overly impressed with it beyond its size.

"Okay," he said. "So, we're adding Star Wars to the list of new future things he needs to know."

Once they'd looked at all the displays, they moved into the Lego Store itself. There were smaller displays of what the kits available could build, as well as shelves and shelves of sets, many related to popular movies or tv shows. A table in the middle was covered with a flat Lego surface and contained drawers and compartments filled with little pieces. It took very little prompting for Steve to take a seat and start building something.

"So, what do you think he would like?" Sam asked, looking around the store. "I told him I would get him something, and every kid ought to have some Legos. Given his reaction to Darth Vader out there, one of the Star Wars sets may not be the way to go. Though they are pretty sweet. Whatever he gets, I may have to get myself an X-wing."

"You could just ask him what he wants," Clint said.

"I could," Sam agreed. "But I feel like he'd either tell me that he's okay and he doesn't want anything, or he'd just say whatever I want to get is fine."

Bucky chuckled. "Yeah, he would do that." He looked around the store. Most of the themed ones, he didn't recognize either, though he suspected Steve would still enjoy building whatever Sam got him. "If you want to play it safe, what about one that's not from something? Like some of these knights over here, or this little spaceship."

Sam eventually decided on a pirate ship, which Bucky had to admit looked pretty awesome, and found himself hoping Steve would invite him to help put together. Steve, Thor and Natasha had built some kind of tower out of the pieces on the table in the middle, and Natasha and Thor were harder to coax away from it than Steve was.

"So, you like the Legos, huh?" Sam asked.

"Yeah!" Steve said. "They're really fun!"

"They sure are," Sam agreed. "How would you like to take some home with you?"

"Really?"

"Yeah," Sam said, smiling. He held out the box with the pirate ship. "This look like something you think you'd have fun putting together?"

Steve's eyes went wide as they raked over the box. "For me?"

Sam nodded.

Steve looked up at Bucky, seeking confirmation that he could accept something like this, and Bucky smiled and nodded. Steve turned back to Sam. "I'd really like that." He smiled widely. "Thank you, Mr. Sam."

Sam smiled, straightening up and reaching over to ruffle Steve's hair. "You're welcome, kiddo." He straightened up and walked to the register with Natasha, groaning softly to her, "I just called Captain America 'kiddo'."

Natasha laughed. "He _is_ dangerously cute."

Back at the Tower, they carried their various purchases upstairs, making their way toward their rooms. Bucky knew several of them had purchased gifts for Steve, but he imagined they were waiting to hand them out without overwhelming him. Steve set his stack of library books on the desk, laying his new pirate ship down next to them and staring at it happily for a minute. "Maybe we can build this tomorrow," he decided. "What do you think, Bucky? You want to build a pirate ship tomorrow?"

Bucky grinned. "Sounds good to me."

Steve nodded, dropping back down to sit on his bed with a tired but happy sigh. "Today was fun," he said. "Thanks for taking me out to see stuff."

"We'll have to do it again sometime," Bucky said. "There's a lot more to see." He looked down at the bag he'd set down by the chair. "Hey, um, I got you something while we were out today."

"You did?" Steve asked curiously.

"Yeah." Bucky picked up the bag, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasn't as cool as a pirate ship. He reached into the bag and pulled out a fluffy brown teddy bear.

Steve's eyes widened in surprise, and he slipped off the bed and walked over, one hand reaching out for the bear. "It looks like Franklin," he said softly.

Bucky nodded. Franklin was Steve's old teddy bear, one that he had slept with until he was about eleven. Bucky had been surprised to see this one on the shelf of the toy store, looking so similar to Steve's old one, if less battered. "That's what I thought," he said. "I thought you might, well, I thought you might miss him."

Steve took the bear from Bucky. "I do," he said softly, quietly enough that Bucky wondered if maybe he wasn't supposed to hear it. He ran a hand carefully over the bear. "He's really soft." He studied the bear for a moment, then hugged it against his chest, something kind of experimental in the gesture, then smiled and hugged it tighter. "Thanks, Bucky," he said, looking up at him with a bright smile. "I really like it."

"You do?"

"Uh huh." He hugged the bear a moment longer, then moved to set it carefully on his bed. He looked back at Bucky, a little flush in his cheeks. "I didn't want to say how I missed Franklin," he said a little sheepishly. "I didn't want you to think I was a baby or anything."

"Stevie, have I ever teased you about Franklin?" Bucky asked. Steve shook his head. "It would be pretty mean of me, especially since I had Oliver." Oliver had been Bucky's own stuffed toy, a patchwork rabbit.

"I know," Steve said blushing a little deeper. "I just…I don't know," he sighed. He looked up at Bucky and smiled. "It was really nice of you to think of it," he said. "Thank you for getting him for me."

Bucky smiled. "You're welcome. Maybe he can help you sleep a little better." Steve slept well enough now that they were sharing a room, but he still slept a little uneasily, just because of everything being different.

Steve looked at the bear sitting on his bed and nodded. "I think he will." He looked back at Bucky and smiled and hugged him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Bucky said again. He ruffled Steve's hair, steering him in the direction of the door and dinner. "What do you think you're going to call him?"

"Franklin the Second," Steve said, in a tone that suggested there had been no other option.

* * *

_Steve is back to his usual self, and he's got Legos to play with and a teddy bear of his very own._

_Up next, Steve and Sam build a pirate ship._


	6. Legos And Library Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve learns some things about outer space, and spends some quality time with Sam.

* * *

Sam was glad to see Steve restored to his usual cheery self the next morning. Their day out to the mall had done him good, and they'd all had fun. Sure, he wasn't going to get over missing his mom just like that, but the rest of them could help him and keep him occupied, and yesterday had gone a long way toward convincing Steve that the rest of them _did_ like having him around. (Bucky had filled them in on the other thing that had been bothering Steve, and Sam had felt a guilty little stab in his chest at how all their talk of 'fixing' Steve must have sounded to his nine-year-old self-worth. Not that they were going to give up on trying to restore Steve to his adult self, but until they figured out how, they could be more sensitive about it.)

"Mr. Sam?" Steve asked after breakfast.

"Yeah, man. What's up?"

"Me and Bucky were gonna build the pirate ship today. Do you want to play too?"

Sam smiled. "I'd love to. Why don't you go get it, and we'll set it up?"

Steve grinned and rushed off to his room to get it. He came back with a merrily rattling box. "Bucky's shaving," he said. "He said we could start without him."

"Alright," Sam said. "How about over here?" They picked an empty spot on the living room floor. Thor was in one of the chairs in the corner reading _The Chamber of Secrets_ , having finished _The Philosopher's Stone_ last night.

"Whoa," Steve said, looking at the little bags full of pieces as they opened the box. "That's so many. How do we know how to make it?"

"There's instructions right here," Sam said, picking up the manual.

Steve leafed through it while Sam opened all the little bags. "It's nice there's no words and just pictures. I mean, I could read it if there were words," he hurried to add. "But, you know, for people who don't know how to read, or maybe can't read English. That's nice of them."

"It is," Sam agreed. "They do sell these things all over the world."

"So we have to set all the pieces out first?" Steve asked, flipping back to the first page.

"Yep. Takes a little while, but it makes the building part easier."

"So, have you always been a superhero?" Steve asked, dumping out one of the bags and beginning to separate the pieces.

"No," Sam said, working on his own little pile. "Before I signed up with the Avengers, I was a soldier for a while."

"Really?" Steve asked. "My dad was a soldier. He was in the Great War."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, my dad was a soldier too. He was in Vietnam."

"What's that?" Steve asked.

"Oh, yeah, I guess you missed that one. It was a big war in the seventies."

Steve nodded. "And you wanted to be a soldier because of your dad?"

"Mostly," Sam allowed. "The Army also helped pay for me to go to college. That's where I did my counselor training."

"What kind of fighting did you do?"

"I worked in pararescue. We flew in to dangerous places and helped people get out."

"So, you were pretty much a superhero already, then," Steve said.

Sam smiled, feeling touched. "I guess you could say that."

"Is that how you met the Avengers?" Steve asked. "You helped them out in a fight or something?"

"No, actually, I left the Army first. My, ah…well, my wingman, Riley, who flew all my missions with me…He died. Got shot down."

Steve looked up at him sadly, compassion swimming in those bright blue eyes that was very Big Steve. "I'm sorry," he said. He shifted over a little closer to Sam and patted him on the knee. "My dad died in the war too."

Sam nodded, appreciating the little guy's empathy. "It just got too hard for me to be over there, after that happened to him. So I came home. I got a job helping other soldiers who'd had a hard time, trying to help them work things out and be okay."

Steve smiled. "My ma always says that there's all kinds of ways to be someone's hero, even if you never fight a fight. I mean, she usually says that to me when I get in a fight," he added a little sheepishly, and Sam swallowed down a laugh, knowing the point he was going for. "But she's still right, you know?" Steve pressed on. "People need people to help them, and it's real nice of you to do that." Steve smiled up at him warmly. "And you're good at it. You helped me feel better when I was sad the other day, and you're easy to talk to. You're good at taking care of people. And that's a hero kind of thing to do too."

Sam swallowed down an unexpected lump in his throat. "Thanks, Steve," he said softly. What was it with this kid? He was just like Big Steve, just…more concentrated, since all of that Big Steve compassion had to fit into this tiny little body.

Steve leaned over against his side and looped an arm around him in a hug. "You're welcome, Sam." It took him a second before he seemed to realize what he said, then he winced a little. "Sorry," he said. "I mean, Mr. Sam."

Sam chuckled. "It is very okay with me if you just call me 'Sam'."

"It is?" Steve asked, looking a little embarrassed.

"It is," Sam confirmed. "In fact…" He leaned in conspiratorially. "I kind of like it better."

Steve grinned. "Okay." He bit his lip like he was thinking something over. "Sam," he finished, still smiling.

"Okay," Sam repeated. "Steve." He held up a fist for a fist bump, which Steve returned. "What say we get back to work on this boat, huh? You know any good pirate stories?"

"I read Treasure Island," Steve said. "I bet this guy could be Long John Silver," he went on, picking up one of the shadier-looking pirate figurines.

"You ever hear of Captain Jack Sparrow?" Sam asked, knowing the answer was 'no'. "He had a ship called the Black Pearl, and he was on the run from his old crew, who had a curse on them…"

* * *

Sam, Bucky and Steve had worked on putting together Steve's new pirate ship all morning, stopping for a lunch break and putting construction on hold since Sam had some errands to run. Steve decided to spend the afternoon looking over his library books, and Natasha found him in one of the armchairs, lying on his stomach with his feet up over the back of the chair, resting his chin on his folded arms, a book about space in front of him.

"Hiya, Steve," she said. "That doesn't look comfortable."

"It is, actually," Steve said, looking up from his book. "It stretches me out."

"Well, it sure does that," she agreed. "Whatcha reading?"

"A book about space," Steve said. "Did you know that people have been in space?" he asked in complete awe. "In real rocket ships and everything!"

"I did know that, yeah."

"And they've been on the moon!" he exclaimed, even more excited by this piece of information. "See?" He flipped a couple of pages back in his book. "Lookit! That's an actual photo of an actual guy walking on the actual moon." He let out a huff of air, lost for words to describe how amazing that was.

Natasha smiled. Big Steve was still a pretty big space geek, more openly so now that Bucky was back. The two of them devoured old Star Trek and National Geographic space documentaries together. "It's pretty cool," she agreed.

"I can't believe people have been to space!" Steve said. He flipped a few more pages, back to the spot he'd stopped. "And look, there's robots we send out into space that take pictures and send them back to us. This is what real space looks like!" he said, pointing to a picture of the Horsehead Nebula.

She grinned. It was adorable how excited he was. "Maybe one day we'll get to go out there," she said. "Regular people, I mean, not just specially trained astronauts."

"Oh, that would be the _best_!" Steve said. "If I could go to space…" He trailed off dreamily. "I mean," he said, coming back. "They'd have to get better at oxygen and stuff like that. I don't think somebody with asthma like me could breathe very well in the kinds of ships they have now."

"Maybe not," Natasha allowed. "But people are making improvements all the time. Maybe one day it'll be as easy as getting in a car."

"You've never been to space, have you?" Steve asked.

"No. We've fought some aliens before, but just when they come here."

"You've seen actual aliens?" Steve asked in awe.

Natasha chuckled. "You have too. Thor's an alien."

"Oh, yeah." Steve had evidently forgotten that. "No, but I mean, like, not people-looking aliens."

"I've seen those too," Natasha said. "The ones we fought were called the Chitauri."

"What did they look like?" Steve wondered.

Natasha pulled out her phone and pulled up some pictures from Tony's files. Steve's jaw was on the floor by the time they were done.

"Wow," he breathed. "A real, actual alien invasion. Just like on the radio." He looked up at her curiously. "How often does stuff like that happen? Should we be on the lookout for alien attacks?" he asked, looking just a little bit nervous.

"It doesn't happen all that often," Natasha said, smiling and ruffling his hair. "They're not something people worry about most of the time."

"I guess that's good," Steve agreed, though he still looked a little uncertain.

"So what else are you learning from your space book?" she asked, steering the conversation back to less invasion-y topics.

"Did you know we put a little robot on Mars?" Steve asked, happily diverted. "It's called the Rover. It's up there exploring the planet all by itself and sending us pictures and science and stuff..."

* * *

_So, Steve's starting to get a little more settled now._

_Up next, Steve hangs out in the lab with Tony and learns about artificial intelligence._


	7. The Importance Of Empathy In Robots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Tony spend some quality time together, and Bucky learns that even F.R.I.D.A.Y. has some caretaker feelings/programming as far as the little guy is concerned.

* * *

By the time a week of Little Steve had rolled around, it had stopped feeling weird. It was actually, somewhat alarmingly, starting to feel a little bit normal. No one was giving up on solving this, but it was turning out to be a longer term problem. It was being worked on alongside other things, and life in Avengers Tower slowly adjusted to accommodate their nine-year-old Captain.

Routines were starting to form—Steve was a fairly low maintenance kid, and was perfectly happy to sit and read or draw and entertain himself, but there were still habits people fell into. Clint and Steve made breakfast together most mornings. Steve would climb on things down in the gym while Natasha worked out. Wanda and Steve had developed a game where he would throw things unexpectedly for her to catch with her force fields, or where she would try to sneak up on him and lift him up in the air before he spotted her. Sam and Steve would build something—Legos, or the elaborate marble run set Natasha and Clint had gotten him—and they would talk while they worked. Steve would sometimes crawl up into Thor's lap and shyly ask him if he would sing him a song from Asgard, or tell him a story, and he would curl up into a contented little ball and listen to the deep rolling voice of the god of thunder.

Bucky couldn't help feeling warm and kind of fuzzy as he watched it all. The team had already been like their own little family, but there was something a little more…intentional to it now. It felt good. And he'd be lying if he said it didn't feel _awesome_ that, yes, Steve was making friends and feeling comfortable with everyone, but Bucky was still his go-to for everything. On a more selfish level, it meant the little guy liked him best and that made him happy, but when you went deeper than that…Steve _needed_ Bucky. And Bucky…Now that Bucky was back from Hydra, he was loved and respected and wanted and cared for and all those wonderful things, but nobody had needed him in a very long time. That was something he'd thought was left in the past with Old Bucky, and to not just be needed by someone, but to actually be able to meet that need, it was healing something. Fixing a part of Bucky's damaged soul. Big or little, Steve kept doing that.

The only one of them who hadn't really developed a routine with Little Steve was Stark. That wasn't to say he didn't interact with the little guy—after the fort and the movie night, he'd been pretty involved, he just hadn't settled on one thing they did together. Sometimes they would play a game, or make dessert, or take a tour of all the fancy cars in the garage. Today, it seemed they were working on something in the lab. After determining from F.R.I.D.A.Y. that was where they were, Bucky headed down to check in—Stark always had good intentions, but he wasn't so much with the safety gear, and did have a tendency to set things on fire, and Steve was a lot less durable in those situations than he used to be.

"And see, that's the thing about artificial intelligence," Bucky heard Stark saying as he rounded the door into the lab. "If you can't give it a personality, you might as well just make a robot."

"Is that not the same?" Steve asked. He was sitting cross-legged on top of a counter, wearing, Bucky was pleased to note, a large pair of safety goggles.

"Nope," came Stark's voice from somewhere Bucky hadn't quite pinpointed yet. "Phillips." A hand shot up from inside a hunk of machinery next to the counter, and Steve placed a screwdriver into it. "Robots are just machines that do what they're told."

"But Miss F.R.I.D.A.Y. does what you tell her," Steve pointed out.

There was a clang and a sharp, "ow!" from inside the machine. "Yes, but she can do stuff on her own too," Stark continued. "A robot needs very specific instructions, and can only do those things. A.I. can take what you tell it and figure out stuff to do with that without having to be told to. But if you don't put at least some guidelines on there, things can get ugly. Socket wrench."

"What do you mean?" Steve wondered, handing the tool over.

"Well, see, you can make an artificial brain to do all the thinking it wants. It can be the smartest thing in the world. But they can't feel things. And feelings and emotions—things like empathy or understanding—turn out to be pretty important. Flathead."

Steve handed him another screwdriver, biting his lip in thought. Rather than interrupt, Bucky crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. Neither of them had noticed him yet, and it looked like Stark was actually starting to talk about Ultron, which he'd never done once the whole thing was over—as far as Bucky knew anyway.

"I still don't understand," Steve said.

"Well, usually, logic is good. But say you get a super-smart A.I. And say you tell him…Say you tell him that his job is to help make world peace. That sounds like a good thing, right?" There was a little bit of hesitancy in his voice as he explained the example, and Bucky was surprised he would mention Ultron so directly. But then, as far as Steve knew, it was hypothetical.

"Yeah," Steve agreed.

"So, say this A.I. gets started on his mission. And he does a lot of research and figures out what's going on in the world and what needs fixing. Still sounds good so far, right?"

"Uh huh."

There was another clank and a louder, "ow!" The hand that shot up from out of the machine was a little more frantic. "Pliers! Quick!"

"Are you okay, Mr. Tony?" Steve asked, handing over the pliers.

"Ow, ow, ow! Yes. Okay, we're good now. Where was I?"

"You said the A.I. was researching and trying to figure out how to fix things."

"Right. Here, pass me a couple of those blueberries. Okay, so the A.I. looks at the world and decides that all the problems are because of all the people. You follow me so far?"

"I think so," Steve said. "I mean, people wouldn't start wars and stuff if there were no other people to fight."

"Exactly. So, what would you do to try to fix that?"

Steve had a pretty cute thoughtful little face, but the addition of the humongous safety goggles cranked it up into adorable. "Well," he said slowly. "I mean, I'm not as smart as an A.I. or anything, but I guess I would tell people to talk to each other. Like, if they're fighting over maybe not enough stuff or something, you could try to figure out a way for them to share, or maybe to make more?"

"Mm, see, that's a good idea. A hard one to do. But a good one. A _human_ idea," Stark said. "But this A.I., it sees all these problems and it thinks, well if people are the problem, the easiest way to fix it is to get rid of the people. So it builds itself a body and goes out and tries to kill all the people."

Steve gasped.

"Exactly," Stark said. "The A.I. doesn't know any better, because it's just looking at numbers and logic, and not counting for the human side of things. So you still need some rules and guidelines for it to follow so it doesn't get carried away." He sighed. "I learned that the hard way," he added softly.

Not having super hearing anymore, Bucky wondered if Steve heard that. His expression said that he did, but that he realized it might not be a good idea to poke at it and ask for more.

"I think I get it," Steve said. "So—"

There was a hiss of steam and smoke from whatever it was Stark was working on, and a sudden flame burst out of one end of it. Bucky was jumping forward to grab Steve, but a robotic arm flew down from the ceiling, wrapped itself around Steve's chest and yanked him out of harm's way before Bucky could take more than a few steps. Another swooped in and started spewing fire retardant all over the machine.

"Mr. Tony, are you okay?!" Steve exclaimed, dangling from mechanical arms up near the ceiling.

"I'm good," Stark coughed, emerging from the machine. Setting a good example for Steve, perhaps, he was actually wearing his own pair of safety goggles, and he pulled them up now, revealing two clean patches around his eyes while the rest of his face was covered in soot and white foam. "This is actually a totally coincidental but very good example of how A.I. works like it's supposed to."

"Huh?"

"So, one of F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s primary concerns is the safety of people in the Tower," Stark explained, grabbing a rag and wiping his face off. "So, that explosion happens right there, and I don't have to tell her what to do, because she already knows, and I don't have to tell her how to do it, because she can figure it out. She grabs you first, with just the right amount of pressure to pick you up but not so much that she crushes your ribs, and gets you away from the fire. At the same time, because she can think and act so fast, she puts out the fire, and you didn't see it because we didn't need it, but she was also getting a bunch of tools ready to crack this thing open and get me out if the fire didn't go out fast enough."

"Oh," Steve said thoughtfully. "I think I understand. So, if she was an A.I. that didn't have the rule to care about people, she might have hurt me getting me out of the way, or maybe hurt you because it would be more important to put the fire out fast and save the whole Tower full of people instead of putting it out a little slower and saving you too?"

Stark beamed. "Exactly!" He pointed up at Steve with the screwdriver. "You're a sharp kid."

Steve grinned, pleased that he'd gotten it right. "Um," he said looking around. "Can I get down now?"

"Sure," Stark said, waving a hand, and the robot arm holding Steve up lowered him down carefully until his feet were on the floor.

"Sorry your invention blew up," Steve said, nodding at the machine.

"Oh, that happens all the time," Stark said, waving it off. "I should probably let it cool down a little before getting back in," he said, and Bucky knew he was only saying that because Steve was watching. He smiled. Look at Stark, making smart choices and being a good role model!

"Ooh, I know!" Stark continued, walking to another corner of the lab. "I've got some refinements I can make to the new Iron Man suit. C'mere, I'll show you how an arc reactor works."

Steve hurried along behind him eagerly, and Bucky grinned, backing out of the lab. The little guy seemed safe enough, and it wouldn't hurt to leave him down here a while longer and let him keep being a good influence on Stark.

"Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" he said, stepping back into the elevator.

"Yes, Sergeant Barnes?"

"That was good looking out back there."

"Thank you, sir," the A.I. replied, sounding just the tiniest bit smug.

"You're gonna keep a close eye on them, right?"

"Indeed, sir," she said, a hint of a smile in her voice. "Mr. Stark can be a bit…over-zealous, at times. I'm taking special care with Captain Rogers in his current state. I was planning to inform you should any more incidents occur, in case you thought it best to remove him to a safer level of the Tower."

"Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y.," he said. That human side of the A.I. _was_ pretty good. "You do that."

There were no more incidents in the lab, but about an hour later, F.R.I.D.A.Y. did chime in to alert him to something else.

"I thought you should know, Sergeant, that Captain Rogers is currently in the east stairwell on the 42nd floor, and my sensors indicate that he is beginning to show signs of respiratory distress."

Bucky jumped up, running for the stairs. "Is he having an asthma attack?"

"Not yet," she replied. "He has stopped to sit down and is using his inhaler, which I believe will circumvent any more serious problems."

Bucky nodded and hurried down the stairs, flying down the levels until he saw Steve sitting on the steps, taking a long pull from his inhaler. "Steve!" he exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

Steve looked up, surprised but relieved to see him. "Hi, Bucky! Yeah, I'm okay. I just got out of breath."

Bucky knelt down in front of him and looked him over, checking his breathing and his pulse and deciding F.R.I.D.A.Y. was right and no asthma attack was forthcoming. "What happened?" he asked, sitting down beside him.

Steve shrugged, still breathing a little heavily. "It's just a lot of stairs."

Bucky raised a curious eyebrow. "Have you been walking all the way up here from the lab?"

Steve nodded.

"That _is_ a lot of stairs," he agreed. "Why didn't you just use the elevator?"

Steve blushed a little. "I can't reach the buttons."

Bucky smiled and didn't laugh, though he wanted to just a little bit. He slung an arm over Steve's shoulder so he would know the smile wasn't a mocking one. "You don't have to be able to push the buttons to use the elevator, you know," he said. He held out his hands in offer to pick Steve up, and Steve nodded and let him.

"I don't?" he asked.

"Nope," Bucky said, exiting the stairwell and moving for the elevator. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. can help you with that. You just have to ask her."

"Really?"

"Yep. Try it," he said as the elevator doors shut.

Steve looked up at the ceiling curiously. "Excuse me, Miss F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes, Captain Rogers?" the A.I. replied swiftly.

"Um, could you please make this elevator go up to the 59th floor?" The floor hummed slightly beneath them as they started their upward journey. "Wow. Thank you."

"You're welcome," she replied.

Steve turned to look at Bucky. "I didn't think of that. I thought she only listened to Mr. Tony."

"No, she helps all of us out," Bucky explained. "You just have to ask. Stark is her boss though, so if something you said disagreed with something Stark said, she'd listen to him."

"Usually," F.R.I.D.A.Y. cut in. "But Captain Rogers is very polite, and I do like that."

Bucky chuckled and Steve smiled shyly. "Aw, she likes you, Stevie," he said, poking him in the side and making him giggle. Because of course she did. Even ceiling robots had a soft spot for the little guy.

* * *

_So, Steve has learned some things about robots, and Tony has found himself a little bit of closure._

_Up next, Bucky has a nightmare, but Little Steve is on the case._


	8. I Will Be Here, Don't You Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hydra comes creeping around the edges of Bucky's dreams, but Steve is there to chase the darkness away.

* * *

Like so many of his nightmares, it took Bucky a while to realize that what he was seeing wasn't real and that he could get out. It took him a few more minutes to figure out how to do that, and he hovered somewhere trapped between asleep and awake. In his semi-conscious state, he couldn't remember where he would be when he did wake up, and if the person whose presence he could sense was going to try to hurt him. He lashed out when they touched him, and the frightened gasp that he didn't think was his that accompanied the gesture was enough to finally pull him the rest of the way into awareness.

Bucky's eyes quickly adjusted to the dark room, and they landed on the fingers of his metal hand that were locked around Steve's skinny little wrist like a vice. Steve looked terrified, but he was visibly trying to force it down and speak as slowly and calmly as he could muster, saying, "It's okay, Bucky, it's okay. It's just me; it's Steve. You're okay. You're gonna be okay, but you need to wake up," over and over again.

Bucky gasped and jerked his hand away, letting go of Steve. Big Steve knew better than to touch Bucky when he was having a nightmare, but Little Steve didn't, and Bucky could have really hurt him. No wonder he looked so scared!

As soon as Bucky let go, Steve quickly backed away a couple of steps, holding his arm against his chest. "Bucky?" he asked carefully. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, rolling back and sitting up to put some more distance between himself and Steve. "I'm sorry, Stevie, I'm so—did I hurt you?"

Steve took just a hair too long to shake his head and Bucky felt his heart dropping into his stomach.

"Steve?" he pressed.

Steve looked down at the floor. "A little," he said softly. Nausea churned in Bucky's gut and Steve looked up and hurried on to reassure him. "No, but I'm okay," he insisted, holding up the arm Bucky had grabbed. "See?" He waved it back and forth quickly. "It's not broke or anything; you just squeezed it really hard."

Bucky closed his eyes and shook his head, imagining the hand-shaped bruise forming on his pale skin, even if he couldn't see it in the dark. "Steve, I'm so sorry."

"S'okay," Steve told him. "I know you didn't mean to." Bucky still couldn't look at him, and after a minute, he felt a tentative little hand come to rest on his knee. "That must have been a really bad nightmare, huh?"

"Yeah," Bucky sighed.

Steve pulled his hand away and Bucky opened his eyes when his mattress shifted to see Steve climbing up onto his bed. Steve wriggled his way under Bucky's arm and wrapped his arms around his torso. "Whatever it was, it's okay now," he said, hugging him tightly.

Bucky couldn't help smiling a little at that, though he still felt sick over what he'd just done. "Steve, I just hurt you," he said. "Are you sure—"

"Yes," Steve said firmly before Bucky could finish the question. He shifted a little closer to him and hugged him more tightly to back up his point. "You didn't mean to, an' I forgive you," he said. He smiled up at him. "And if you have another bad dream, I'll just throw a sock at you or something to wake you up instead."

That surprised a chuckle out of Bucky, and Steve smiled a little wider. "Okay," Bucky agreed. "I'm still really sorry."

"I know," Steve said. He leaned his head against Bucky's arm. "It's okay."

They just sat there for a minute. Usually, Bucky was a lot shakier after a nightmare, but he'd been distracted by making sure Steve was okay. That didn't mean it had negated the nausea or the tremors or the need to start crying or screaming, and Bucky drew in a shaky breath as he felt it all rolling in. He'd been getting better at these, but they still came far too often for his liking, and he'd been wondering what would happen when they showed up where Little Steve could see them. Nothing good, as it turned out.

"You wanna talk about it?" Steve offered, one hand starting to rub circles up and down Bucky's back as shivers raced along his spine.

"Not really," Bucky said, and he wouldn't have wanted to even if Steve had been big, but if he started talking now he would traumatize the little guy.

"Okay," Steve said. "You don't have to. But it was pretty scary, huh?"

"Yeah," Bucky whispered. A voice was still screaming in the back of his head, and he was too afraid to look closer and see if it was him doing the screaming, or if it was him making someone else scream. He tried to draw in a deep breath to steady himself. "But it's over now. I'm okay. I'm sorry I woke you up. You can go back to bed."

Steve snorted softly and tilted his head up to give him a _look_ that really wasn't that different than when Big Steve did it. "You should lay back down," he said, evidently choosing not to dignify Bucky's foolish remark any further.

When Bucky didn't comply, Steve gave him a shove, and Bucky laughed to himself and slowly stretched back out on the mattress. Though Bucky had just told him to go back to bed, he suddenly felt achingly alone when Steve shifted and got off the mattress. Steve never left him alone after a nightmare, and while it was true that he was too small now to wrap his arms around Bucky and shield him from the world, just the tangible presence of someone who cared about him was enough to help keep the darkness away.

In the split second it took Bucky to feel all of that, Steve had picked something up off the floor and then climbed back up onto the bed again. "Okay," he said, crawling carefully over Bucky to sit between him and the wall. "First," he said, picking up one of Bucky's extra pillows and reaching over to place it between Bucky and the edge of the bed. "We'll put that there. It's like a wall, so nothing can get you," he explained. "Then…" He reached over and tucked something soft against Bucky's chest. "You can borrow Franklin the Second." The bear would appear to be what he had picked up off the floor.

"Steve, I don't—" Bucky began.

"He doesn't mind," Steve assured him, and Bucky couldn't tell if he was genuinely or intentionally misinterpreting Bucky's protest, but he let it lie. The bear _was_ awfully soft.

Steve was shifting again, struggling a little to pull the covers back up, but he managed, and shifted up onto his knees to pull them up and tuck them around Bucky. "There," he said, patting Bucky's shoulder. "You're all safe now." He settled down next to Bucky's head. "And I'm gonna sit right here. And everything's gonna be okay," he said soothingly.

"Steve," Bucky started to protest, but he wasn't really sure what he was protesting.

"Shh," Steve soothed, starting to card his little fingers back through Bucky's hair. "It's okay. You don't have to be scared now," he said softly. "Hydra can't hurt you any more."

Bucky swallowed down a knot in his throat. Steve really had no idea what he was fighting here, but that didn't put even the smallest dent in his determination to make it all better. And it was amazing what that soft, sweet little voice could do against the demons raging in Bucky's head.

"I'm here," Steve assured him. "It's okay." He kept up his gentle stroking of Bucky's hair. "Mr. Thor's songs from Asgard work real good to help you feel better, but I don't know the words to those. So I'm gonna sing you one of ma's. Those work real good too," he finished quietly.

Before Bucky could say anything, Steve cleared his throat softly and started singing gently. There was a Gaelic lilt to the words that reminded him of Sarah Rogers, sending his mind back to a simpler time when he was just a little boy, and a woman with kind eyes and a warm smile who loved him like he was her other son.

Peace started rolling through Bucky's soul, and instead of arguing that, really, Steve, he was an adult and he was fine and he could take care of himself, he allowed his eyes to close. He let himself really feel how warm and secure he felt right now, behind this little wall of pillows and blankets and teddy bears that Steve had built. He let himself just listen to Steve breathing slow and steady and to the words he was singing softly. He let himself relax under the little fingers brushing gently through his hair. This wasn't how he normally handled his nightmares, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't working.

And, safe and protected from the darkness, Bucky fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, Steve was wrapped around him again like the little octopus he was. Though, how he'd managed to get one of his legs underneath Bucky's head without waking him up—and how in the world that was comfortable—Bucky wasn't quite sure. Bucky smiled and yawned and closed his eyes again, bringing one hand up to rest on Steve's back. Steve made a happy, sleepy little snuffle and nuzzled his head against Bucky's chest, and Bucky patted his back and went back to sleep.

* * *

_Steve may be a lot littler now, but he's still got his Bucky well looked after._

_Up next, Steve has a little allergy scare, but Tony's going to get him to the hospital with time to spare, even if he has to fly through a couple of windows to do it._


	9. Take My Breath Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve finds a new thing to be allergic to (don't worry; he'll be just fine!), and Tony's feeling the fatherly feelings again.

* * *

"So," Steve asked at breakfast one morning. "Where do you guys get your missions from? Do people write you letters or something and say they need help, or just…How do you know where to go?"

"Sometimes people ask us for help," Natasha said. "But we also keep an eye on the news and what's going on in the world, and then we go where people need help."

Steve considered this, taking a sip of his juice. "How, though? I mean, it kind of seems like a lot of work, but I don't see you all the time watching the news or something."

"Well, F.R.I.D.A.Y. keeps an eye on stuff like that," Tony said. "She can keep track of all of that while she's doing something else, and alert us if anything looks important."

"There's other people who keep an eye on things too," Clint said. "They monitor stuff more closely and send smaller teams out where they can, then tell us they need help if it gets bigger."

"Oh," Steve said. "Okay."

A sudden, slightly horrifying thought struck Tony. "Has anyone actually mentioned…um, our latest…development to old Eyepatch?" he asked, catching himself in time to not call Steve a 'problem'. It had been two weeks, and the former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was liable to blow a gasket when he heard that one of his top superheroes was stuck shopping in the children's department.

Natasha shot him a glare over her scrambled eggs—she wasn't a fan of Tony's nickname for Fury. "He knows," she said. "Why do you think he hasn't sent us anywhere in two weeks?"

"Oh." Tony hadn't thought of that, but now that she mentioned it, two weeks off between missions was a little unusual.

Sam asked who was covering their usual workload, but before Natasha could answer, Barnes asked, "Stevie, are you okay?" with a slight note of alarm in his voice.

All eyes snapped to Steve's side of the table, where he had put a hand to his throat and was swallowing repeatedly like he was having trouble getting something down. "My throat feels weird," he said.

"Weird like you've got something stuck in it?" Barnes asked. "Or…"

"Weird like that time I didn't realize Mrs. Davis's cookies had coconut in them, just a little slower," Steve said. He looked up at Barnes nervously. "I think maybe I'm allergic to something."

While Barnes tried not to look worried and felt Steve's throat and checked his breathing, Tony's eyes scanned the breakfast table, searching for anything that might have triggered a reaction. They had been so careful with keeping things he couldn't have well clear of the little guy, so there shouldn't be anything here he couldn't eat, unless… "Hey, what kind of juice is that?" Tony asked, pointing at the pitcher in the middle of the table.

"I think it's mango," Clint said.

"Steve, are you allergic to mangos?" Tony asked.

"Dunno," Steve replied, wiping at his nose and starting to sound a little raspy. "Never had one before." He turned to Barnes. "It's getting a little harder to breathe."

"Okay," Natasha said, standing up quickly. "Epipen," she said, turning to Tony. "You've got to have one somewhere in this tower."

"I think so," Tony said. "But it's gonna be somewhere in the medical wing, and I couldn't tell you where." They'd never needed one before, but Tony had some because it was just good sense, but now he was cursing himself for not spreading them out around the Tower.

"There's one in the first aid kit in the Quinjet," Sam said, jumping up from the table.

"You're not gonna get up there fast enough," Tony said. Steve was starting to wheeze. He tapped furiously at his watch, summoning one of his suits. "Screw the window, F.R.I.D.A.Y., get it in here as fast as you can."

"Yes, Boss," the A.I. said.

"What are you doing?" Barnes asked.

Before Tony could explain, one of the Iron Man suits crashed through the window and he stood up to step inside. "I can get him to the closest emergency room in less than two minutes. That's gonna be faster than finding a pen."

Barnes nodded. "Okay, Steve," he said, kneeling down in front of him and putting his hands on his shoulders. "You're gonna be fine, okay? Stark's gonna fly you to a hospital, and they'll get you all fixed up."

Steve nodded nervously.

Tony moved forward to pick him up. "Alright, hang on tight, kid," he said. "You just keep breathing. I gotcha. F.R.I.D.A.Y., nearest hospital, fast as we can go." He didn't actually know which hospital was closest from here, so he let the A.I. take over steering.

Steve gasped as they burst into the air and out the window, and Tony tucked him in closer against his chest. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., how's he doing?" he asked, making sure to keep the conversation inside the suit.

"His ability to breathe is decreasing rapidly, but our current speed will put us at Mercy General in forty-three seconds," she replied. "At the rate his airways are closing up, that should still be sufficient time to get him help."

"Good," Tony said. "But give me some juice and see if we can't trim that down to at least thirty."

The A.I. didn't reply, but the wind picked up as his repulsors picked up speed. "Hang in there, Steve," he said, opening the comm back up. "Almost there."

They touched down outside of the emergency room in twenty-eight seconds, and Tony didn't bother to step out of the suit, just running inside as fast as he could, his metallic boots loud on the tile floor.

"Look, buddy, you may be Iron Man, but you've got wait your turn," the nurse at the front desk said as Tony elbowed aside the man she was talking to.

Considering that Tony had just elbowed the man in what looked like a broken arm, he felt a little bad, but not bad enough. Steve was really starting to gasp for air now. "Kid's having an allergic reaction and he's having trouble breathing," he said.

The nurse's expression changed in an instant and she nodded at a swinging door to her left. "That way," she said, jamming her finger down on a button. "Greg!" she yelled.

A man that Tony assumed was Greg appeared just as he reached the door. If he was fazed at all by the presence of Iron Man in his E.R., he didn't let on. "Allergic reaction," the nurse yelled. "Oxygen and epi!"

Greg took one look at Steve, yanked open a nearby wall cabinet, and grabbed an Epipen, plunging it into Steve's leg as he barked at Tony, "Hold him still!"

Steve whimpered as the needle jabbed into his leg, but just curled closer against Tony's chest and tried not to move.

"In there," Greg said, nodding to the first exam room. "Put him on the table."

Tony stepped into the room and did so, then stepped back to get out of Greg's way. Greg was already pulling an oxygen mask from a bank of equipment and securing it over Steve's face. This clearly wasn't Steve's first allergy rodeo, but he still looked terrified, and Tony realized belatedly that he was still in the suit, and actually seeing a friendly face might help put the kid at ease. He stepped out of the suit and had it wait in the corner, instructing F.R.I.D.A.Y. to send regular updates back to the Tower.

"What's he reacting to?" Greg asked, clipping a pulse ox and a few other pieces of monitoring equipment to Steve.

"We think it's mango," Tony said.

"Other allergies?"

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" Tony asked, looking at his suit. There were a bunch, and he didn't know them all. The A.I. began reciting the list, and Tony slipped around to where he hoped he wouldn't be in the way and sat next to Steve. "You doing okay, Steve?" he asked.

Steve nodded, though his face didn't exactly agree with the gesture.

"Breathing any better?" he asked. He could still hear him wheezing through the mask, but his lips had lost that bluish tinge they'd started getting when they came in.

"A little," Steve whispered.

Tony reached down and patted his leg. "Just keep breathing, kiddo." He had no idea how long this sort of thing took to clear up.

They were quiet for a moment, watching Greg dig through a medicine cabinet, then Steve shifted uncomfortably. "Am I gonna die?" he asked, so softly it took Tony a second to decipher it.

"Are you gonna—no! No," he said. He moved a little closer and looped an arm over Steve's shoulders, his heart breaking at the frightened look in his shining blue eyes. He'd kind of been thinking Steve was used to this sort of thing, being as sickly as he was growing up, and maybe somewhere in the back of his head he was still hanging on to Big Steve and his frankly irritating stoicism when it came to personal medical problems. But Steve was just a kid, and he couldn't breathe and he was scared, and Tony smiled as warmly as he could muster and hugged him closer to his side. "You're not gonna die," he said calmly. "I know it's scary, not being able to breathe, but we're getting you medicine and we're getting you air, and you're gonna be just fine. Isn't he, Greg?" he asked, turning to the doctor.

"Oh, yeah," Greg said, turning back to face them with a vial and syringe, and Tony had to admit, the guy was pretty good at this. He was still moving with urgency, but anything in his voice that might have suggested this was an emergency and something to freak out about was replaced with a warm smile and completely calm confidence. "You are going to be just fine. What's happening is," he explained, filling the syringe from the vial. "Is that your body came across something it didn't like, and it started closing up your throat so no more of it could get in. Trouble is, it got a little too carried away, and closed it up so air can't get in either. But we gave you some medicine to help with that, and this mask is pushing the oxygen into your body until it's ready to start letting it in on its own again." He held up the syringe. "This is an antihistamine that's not going to mess with any of your other allergies or your asthma, and it'll help your body get back to normal a little faster so you can breathe again." As he spoke, he rolled up Steve's sleeve and carefully injected the antihistamine.

"There," he declared. "That's going to take a few minutes to kick in all the way, so we're going to leave the mask on for a little while, but once it does, you'll be breathing on your own again in no time." He smiled. "You're going to be just fine."

"See?" Tony said, rubbing Steve's arm gently. "Nobody's dying today. Doc said so." That got a little smile out of Steve, and Tony smiled back. "While we're waiting, you want to hear an Iron Man story?" he asked, figuring Steve could use some distracting.

Steve nodded, and Tony launched into a somewhat sanitized version of how he'd built the first suit in the cave. Steve stopped wheezing while he talked, and Tony could feel him breathing a little easier as he leaned against him, not having to try quite as hard to pull in air. He started leaning into him more heavily as the story ended, and Tony looked down to see his eyes drifting shut.

"Hey, no, no!" he said, giving him a shake. He was supposed to be getting more air now, not passing out! "Steve! Wake up! Greg!" he snapped, looking up at the doctor who was already moving closer at the alarmed tone in Tony's voice.

"It's okay," Greg said, casting a quick look over Steve and studying the monitoring equipment. "It's fine. Those are all good numbers over there," he said, pointing to the display. "Antihistamines tend to cause drowsiness, and with as little as he is, it's just hitting him harder."

"So it's okay if he goes to sleep?" Tony pressed.

"Totally fine," Greg assured him. "Actually, it's probably good for him."

Tony stared at the doctor a moment longer to make sure, then nodded.

"W'zit?" Steve mumbled, belatedly reacting to Tony's demand that he wake up, and blinking up at him blearily.

"Don't worry about it," Tony said gently. "It's okay." He shifted a little and moved Steve so that he was lying across his lap instead of leaning on his side. "Go on back to sleep," he told him, reaching up a hand to pat his head.

"M'kay," Steve mumbled, eyes already shut.

This was the second time Steve had fallen asleep on him, and, sure, he was drugged up this time, but it still made Tony feel all those disgustingly nice—dare he say _fatherly_?—sorts of things like it did the first time. Especially that little hand still clenching on tightly to his t-shirt. "I gotcha, kiddo," he whispered, running a gentle hand over his hair. "I gotcha."

Slowly, the knot of fear that had been coiled in Tony's chest and making it hard for _him_ to breathe started to unwind. Steve was breathing, Greg was happy with what he was seeing, and said as soon as Steve woke up, they could go home. He wasn't going to lose him. It was always terrifying when something happened to the people on his team, to this, this _family_ that he'd somehow stumbled into, but this had been…This was all that fear cranked up to eleven, because this wasn't some big bad villain they all chose to fight together, this was Steve, small and more vulnerable than he'd ever been and unable to fight back, and Tony had almost lost him to something so stupidly normal and yet so beyond the scope of all his abilities to fix.

After a while, Steve started coming around, and he was still pretty drowsy, but Greg had him sit up and take the mask off, and after he ran a couple of checks, pronounced him good to go. Steve smiled and thanked him sleepily and stayed sitting on Tony's lap, nuzzling his head against his chest in a way that made Tony feel so warm and fuzzy inside he kind of wanted to cry.

He had Greg give him some more Epipens to keep in more convenient places around the Tower, then he got back into the suit and picked Steve back up and flew home.

The window he'd made his exit through was still broken, so he just flew right back in to the main living area where everyone was waiting. Thankfully, F.R.I.D.A.Y. had been sending updates back, so everyone knew he was fine, but that didn't stop them from crowding around them anyway as soon as they landed.

"Is he okay?"

"Is everything alright?"

"How is he?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy," Tony said, backing up a couple of steps. "He's fine. See? Breathing on his own and everything."

"Hi, guys," Steve said tiredly, turning his head to look at all of them.

They all stepped forward a little more carefully. "How are you doing, sweetheart?" Natasha asked, brushing his hair back and putting a hand to the side of his face, and though Tony's eyebrows went up just a hair at the endearment, he wisely said nothing.

"M'okay," Steve said.

"You had us all real worried, man," Sam said. "Glad to see you're alright."

Barnes stepped forward and Steve made a plaintive little noise and held his arms out to him, so Tony smiled and handed him over. "Everything's fine," Tony said, answering the myriad of questions he saw in the super-soldier's eyes. "I've got a complete rundown for you from the doc when you're ready."

Barnes nodded, smiling gratefully, then turned his attention to Steve. "How do you feel, Stevie?"

"Sleepy," Steve said, shifting to get his head more comfortable on Barnes's shoulder and closing his eyes again. "And a little sick," he added, and Greg had said a little nausea was no cause for alarm. "But I can breathe now."

"Good," Barnes said, one hand coming up to cradle his head. "Why don't you go back to sleep, huh? See if you don't feel better when you wake up."

"Okay," Steve yawned, and just as Tony had ignored Natasha's use of the word 'sweetheart', so he ignored the soft kiss Barnes planted on top of Steve's head.

"Thank you," Barnes said softly, looking up at Tony and smiling warmly.

Tony nodded and Barnes headed for the living room, settling down onto the couch with Steve on his lap and pulling a blanket up over the sleeping boy. Tony sent the suit back down to the lab and told F.R.I.D.A.Y. to start getting the window taken care of, then pulled out his new stash of Epipens and set to making sure they were spread out and somewhere easy to get to so that he never had to go through something this worrying again.

* * *

_It was a rough start to the day for the little guy, but Tony's got his Captain's back._

_Up next, Thor and Clint talk about Post-Impressionism, and the gang takes a trip to the museum._


	10. Field Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the last chapter was a little tense for Wee Steve, so this time is all just fluff and fun. A field trip to the art museum and hamburgers!
> 
> (A few people have asked, so, just a note about Clint-he does still have a family as we saw in Ultron, and they're not going to appear in this story, but you can safely assume that if Clint does not appear in a chapter, that he's at home on the farm.)

* * *

"So, is this a 1920's thing, or is this a Steve Rogers thing?" Clint asked, gesturing at the dining table and the tidy stack of art supplies. "Because I've got a nine-year-old, and Steve is a strangely neat child." Steve's crayons were tucked neatly back into their box in order of the color spectrum, pencil shavings and eraser crumbs had been carefully swept off the table and deposited in the trash can, and his morning's work was stacked up into a neat little pile of paper. Steve himself was in his room, returning his other supplies to their shelves.

"Well, Steve's always been neat," Natasha pointed out. She leafed carefully through Steve's pile of artwork. It was nothing like the stuff of his she was used to seeing, but it was still pretty good. "I guess to answer the 20's thing, you'd have to see if Bucky was neat."

"I was when I was a kid," Bucky said, coming into the room. "Not so much now, although, the little guy keeps cleaning up the room, so, it doesn't look too bad in there. Why?"

"I've never seen a kid this good at cleaning up," Clint said. "Just wondering where he got it."

"His mom," Bucky said. "Sarah Rogers was a nurse, and she ran a clean hospital and a clean house. I don't think she ever had to tell Steve to clean, though—he just did it because he saw her doing it."

Natasha smiled. That was sweet, and very Steve. Even as a grown up, he was frequently doing everyone's dishes, or tidying up the main living area.

"Mm," Clint mused. He leaned over Natasha's shoulder to look at Steve's drawings. "Kid's not bad. But did he go through a Post-Impressionist phase or something?"

Bucky and Natasha both turned to look at him, and he shrugged. "What? I know things."

"Post-Impressionist?" Natasha asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Steve talks about art sometimes. I listen," Clint replied. He gestured at the drawings. "Overly vibrant or arbitrary colors? Classic Post-Impressionist."

"Indeed," Thor said from behind them, surprising them. He stepped closer to the table and picked up one of the drawings. "Ah, yes. This one is very like your Earth artist, Gauguin."

Both of Natasha's eyebrows went up, and Bucky's eyes widened in surprise. "Okay," she said. "How do you know that?" she asked. Clint knowing art terminology was weird enough.

Thor shrugged. "There was a documentary on the History Channel. It was fascinating, though I prefer Van Gogh, myself. Steve's coloring is like Gauguin, though his subject matter remains rooted in the everyday, like Van Gogh."

Bucky shook his head and chuckled. "Wow. Learn something new every day. Anyway," he said, turning to Clint. "No, Steve never went through a Post-Impressionist phase. But until he got the super-serum, he did go through a colorblind phase."

Natasha nodded. That's right, Steve did used to be colorblind, didn't he? Or, well, not _used to_ anymore, he just was.

"I do not know this term," Thor said.

"Oh, it just means colors look more dull to him than they do to other people," Bucky explained.

"Ah," Thor said, nodding sagely. "I see then how that could contribute to the brightness here."

"What brightness where?" Steve asked, coming back into the room.

"Oh, we were just looking at your drawings," Natasha said. "Clint really likes the colors you used."

"Oh." Steve smiled. "Thanks!"

"You know, I was thinking," Clint said. "We should check out a museum or something. I mean, if you like art, there's all kinds of cool stuff out there."

"That would be nice," Steve said, straightening his pile of papers back up. "Can we see one with Egyptian mummies and stuff?"

"Why not? I'll have to look up where something like that would be, but there's got to be at least one exhibit like that in the city."

"Do you wanna come, Mr. Thor?" Steve offered. "You can learn more about Earth."

"That sounds most enjoyable," Thor said. "Perhaps after lunch?"

"Yeah! You'll come too, won't you, Miss Natasha?"

"I would love to," she said. She assumed Bucky didn't get an invitation because as far as Steve was concerned, it was a given that he'd be going.

They had an early lunch and loaded themselves into Tony's minivan again, having picked up Wanda on their way down, and headed for the Met. At the front desk, Clint picked up a family guide for the Egyptian exhibit that included kid-friendly information and a vocabulary bank, a couple of activities, and a scavenger hunt.

One little blink of his puppy-dog eyes got Steve a ride on Thor's shoulders again, and he opened up the guide and propped it on Thor's head, studying it seriously as they walked. He would occasionally drop the guide down into Thor's face and ask him how to pronounce something.

"Wow," Steve said as they walked into the main exhibit room, complete with a stone structure in the middle that the signs labelled as the Temple of Dendur. "It says they moved this whole building all the way from Egypt here to New York!"

"Really?" Natasha said, having assumed it was a replica.

"How do you move a whole building?" Steve wondered. "Can you pick up a building like this, Miss Wanda?"

"I don't think so," Wanda said. "I've never picked up anything that big before. I would probably drop part of it."

"They took it apart and put it back together again," Bucky said, pointing to a display board over to the side. "There's some pictures of it here."

"Ooh! I wanna see!" Steve said, launching himself off of Thor's shoulders—a move that would have ended in disaster if Thor hadn't caught him and set him down. Steve didn't seem to notice. It was just a given that Thor would keep him safe, which wasn't unlike the way his adult self would fling himself off of buildings or out of windows, knowing he'd be caught by an airborne teammate.

After reading the description of moving the building, Steve returned his attention to the guide, then gave them all a mini-lecture on what an ankh was. One of the activities listed in the guide was to count how many ankhs were carved into the temple, so they set off on a search. Steve stuck with Bucky, holding on to his metal hand, and Natasha did wonder sometimes that the hand didn't seem to faze Steve at all. She knew Bucky tended to be self-conscious about it, wearing long sleeves in public no matter the weather and sometimes even a glove. It was probably good for him that Steve treated it so casually.

After the ankh count was complete, Steve carefully penciled in the total, and they moved to the inside of the temple to check out the carvings and find the ones listed in the guide's scavenger hunt. It was cooler and quieter inside, lit by soft yellow lights along the floor.

"It's awful dark in here," Steve said. "How did the Egyptians know where they were going if they didn't have lights and stuff?" he wondered.

"They used torches, no doubt," Thor explained. "See here, this blackened area of stone," he added, pointing to a soot stain.

"Or maybe some of them had magicians of their own," Wanda said with a smile, creating a ball of red light in her hand since there was no one but them around to see, making Steve grin.

They studied the carvings and read the little plaques, and once or twice Bucky had to tug Steve a couple steps back from the wall and remind him not to touch.

"That was cool," Steve said when they came out the other side, making a note of some sort in his guide. "But they didn't have any mummies."

"Well, sure," Clint said. "That was a temple. They didn't bury people in those. But I think they've got one over this way."

Beyond the temple were papyrus scrolls and pieces of pottery in glass cases, and a large golden sarcophagus set off behind velvet ropes. Behind that was a display with a mummy in a wooden coffin, encased in a temperature-controlled glass box. "It's so shiny!" Steve exclaimed, running to examine the sarcophagus. He circled it carefully, studying all the intricate little hieroglyphs and designs around the outside. "And it's so big," he added. "This must have been to bury a really big guy."

"No, it was for a normal sized-guy. See, you put the dead guy in a wooden box, then that box went inside the shiny one," Bucky said, reading the information card by the mummy.

Steve walked over, looked at the mummy, then shifted back so that Bucky was between him and it, though he peered around him interestedly. He seemed equal parts fascinated and frightened by it. "Is that a real dead guy?" he asked softly.

"Mm-hmm," Bucky nodded. He continued to read, though he extended one hand for Steve to hold, sensing his disquiet.

Steve's thoughtful frown deepened, and he stared at the mummy for several more minutes.

They moved on from Egypt then, Steve still clinging a little tighter to Bucky's hand than normal. They arrived in another large room, a display of sculptures from around the world in different ages.

"Hey, Steve," Natasha said, trying to distract him from his ruminations on the dead pharaoh. "What do you think? Could I be a statue?" She struck up the pose of the Greek Muse she was standing next to.

"Your feet aren't right," Wanda said. "It's more like this." She struck up the same pose and Natasha rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"Oh, sure, you can do the ethereal floaty thing like her when you can actually float. Considering that I can't, I think I'm doing pretty good."

Steve giggled and Bucky nudged him forward. "You try it, Stevie," he suggested.

Steve did, managing to stay up on his toes for about half a minute before tumbling over and laughing. They moved from statue to statue, mimicking the poses and facial expressions. Clint ducked his head down inside his shirt to copy one of the older headless statues, earning a fit of delighted giggles from Steve, and Natasha couldn't help laughing at how ridiculous he looked. Thor enjoyed posing as mighty warriors and delicate wood nymphs with equal vigor, and Bucky and Wanda together attempted to recreate several of the Cubist and Surrealist sculptures, much to the amusement of the rest of them.

"You did really good at those statues, Miss Natasha," Steve told her as they walked out. "How'd you get so good at being all bendy and stuff?"

Natasha smiled. "Well, I keep in good shape for Avengers stuff. But I did a lot of training for ballet when I was younger. There's lots of moving and bending and holding positions in that."

"I didn't know you could dance," Steve said, impressed. "Can I see sometime?"

"Maybe," she allowed. She'd only recently been getting back into it, allowing herself to do it for fun and trying to separate the enjoyment from the unpleasant memories. "I could teach you a few moves next time we're down in the gym."

"That would be nice," Steve said. "I'm not very good at dancing, but I like music."

They made their way back to the van, though Clint insisted on steering them through the Post-Impressionist display on their way out. Since no one felt like cooking, they stopped for burgers on the way home. Thor was, of course, ecstatic, and since this was a nicer burger place, they ordered some of every flavor and cut of french fry, Steve's eyes going wide at the variety. They made sure to ask what was on them all, ensuring there was nothing Steve needed to stay away from (though Natasha knew that there was an Epipen in Bucky's pocket just in case, along with the extra inhaler of Steve's he always carried if they went anywhere).

At the soda machine, Steve tugged on Bucky's sleeve. "Do they have the Cherry Dr. Pepper? I want Cherry Dr. Pepper."

"You do, huh?"

Steve nodded. "It's my most favorite future thing."

"Really?" Bucky asked, filling a cup for him. "Even more favorite than M&M's?"

"Uh huh." He reached for the cup Bucky had filled, but Bucky pulled it up out of reach.

"Even more favorite than your Legos?" he asked playfully.

"I can't drink my Legos," Steve sighed dramatically.

Bucky laughed and handed the drink down. "But surely," he went on, his tone still teasing. "When you say your most favorite thing, you don't mean more favorite than me, right?"

Steve snorted. "You're not a thing, Bucky," he said, not looking up from where he was struggling to poke his straw through the lid of the cup and missing the emotion that washed across Bucky's face at the statement. Natasha saw it, though. Realizing you were really a person took a lot of getting used to, as she knew from experience, and Bucky wasn't very open with that struggle with anyone but Steve, but Natasha saw the look in his eyes sometimes. Steve's casual little statement had absolutely floored him, reminding him of his value without realizing that was what he was doing, because to Steve, well, obviously Bucky was a person.

Bucky smiled and knelt down next to Steve to help him with the straw, hugging him tightly as he picked him up and carried him to the table.

"So, what was everybody's favorite part from the museum?" Steve asked, settling into his seat. They all chatted and laughed until the burgers came, then they didn't talk much at all as they dug into their food and went through a truly obscene amount of french fries. It was weird how normal this whole Little Steve thing was starting to feel, but Natasha did appreciate what it was doing to them—reminding them of the family they'd built together. And when they got Big Steve back, Natasha resolved that she was going to work to make sure this part of it didn't go away.

* * *

_Aw. A nice little educational outing for the group._

_Up next, Steve explores the simple joys to be found in cardboard boxes._


	11. A Boy And His Boxes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky visit a grocery store of the future; and Steve, much like a cat, has a lot of fun with the cardboard boxes Tony gives him.

* * *

"Whatcha got there, Steve?" Bucky asked, walking into the living room. Steve was coming out of the hallway where the elevator was, dragging two large cardboard boxes behind him.

"Boxes," Steve replied. "Mr. Tony gave them to me."

"He gave you boxes?" Bucky asked.

"Uh huh. See?" Steve continued dragging his boxes into the living room, where Bucky saw a stack of other ones waiting.

"That's a lot of boxes," Bucky said, still not sure what they were for.

"Yeah," Steve agreed happily. "I'm gonna make something out of them."

"Like what?"

"Dunno yet. I have to get the rest of them first."

"There's more?"

"Just three more, down in Mr. Tony's lab."

"I'll go get them for you," Bucky offered, wondering how many times Steve had been up and down from the lab with his haul of boxes. At least he was using the elevator instead of the stairs.

"Thanks!" Steve replied. "I'm gonna go get my scissors and some tape."

Bucky headed for the elevator and Stark's lab, where three more boxes of varying sizes were waiting by the door. "What's with all the boxes, Stark?" he asked, picking them up.

The inventor was hanging upside down from the ceiling, suspended by a pair of robot arms and fiddling with the upper part of whatever that was he was building. "Huh?" Stark looked over, seemingly unaware of Bucky until now. "Oh. Yeah, I got a shipment in. Steve asked if he could have one of them, and I told him to take them all if he wanted." He shook his head. "Lab full of robots and state of the art tech, and he wants to play with a cardboard box."

Bucky chuckled. "Were you never a child?"

Stark narrowed his eyes in confusion for a moment, then gave a shrug of concession. "Yeah, alright. I did play around a lot with the wooden crates Dad's lab equipment came in. Hey, pass me that hammer before you go."

Bucky handed over the hammer and took the remainder of the boxes upstairs. Steve had gotten his scissors and tape, and was currently laid out on the floor in front of his box pile with a pad of paper and his crayons, drawing blueprints for whatever he was making.

"Thanks, Bucky," he said absently, mind on his work.

"You're welcome," Bucky said, dropping the boxes and ruffling his hair. "Let me know if you need help with anything."

Steve was quiet for a while, and when Bucky went back in to check on him, a few of the boxes were piled up in something resembling a wall. "Wait, hold that right there," Steve said. Bucky peered around the wall curiously and saw Steve hastily applying packing tape to the side of a box that Stark's little robot, DUM-E, was holding in place for him. "Thanks, DUM-E," Steve said, patting it on what was more or less its head. "That's a good boy."

The little robot chirped happily.

"Hey, Steve?" Bucky asked later, sticking his head back into the room. The box pile was really coming along—a castle, if he had to guess.

"Yeah?" Steve's head poked up from somewhere inside the castle.

"I'm going to the grocery store to get some stuff for dinner. You want to come?"

"Yeah!" Steve agreed excitedly, scrambling out from inside the boxes.

It was a nice day out, and the store wasn't too far, so Bucky figured they could walk. He still really enjoyed being able to walk places and be out and just…be, without having missions, or chasing or being chased. And it had been a couple of days since Steve had been outside.

He'd gotten used to shortening his strides so Steve could keep up without running out of breath, and he really loved the natural, trusting way Steve's little fingers slid between his metal ones and held on. They chatted as they walked, Steve telling him about the book he was reading about boats, after having finished his space book as well as the one about dinosaurs, and asking Bucky questions about the different sorts of ships he'd been on in the War and for missions and things.

Steve's jaw dropped as they walked into the grocery store. "It's so big!" he said. He'd stopped doing the jaw-dropping thing as much these days, becoming more accustomed to 'future stuff', but it was still pretty cute.

"It is big," Bucky agreed. "So you stick close to me, alright?" He wasn't really worried about that. Back when they were both kids, Steve had been every bit adventurous as Bucky, and though he was still eager to explore, the future was scarier than unknown alleyways of Brooklyn, and Steve wasn't particularly inclined to wander off on his own.

Steve nodded, smiling up hopefully at Bucky as he pulled out a shopping cart. "Can I ride in the cart?" he asked.

"Sure," Bucky said with a smile, hefting him up and inside. He was too big for the little seat in the front, but he could sit down in the basket.

"That's a lot of kinds of bread," Steve said thoughtfully, staring at the variety of loaves on display while Bucky picked up about a hundred tortillas. "What's gluten?"

"Huh?"

Steve pointed at a line of bread loaves wrapped in blue. "Those ones say 'gluten-free'. What's that mean?"

"Oh. Gluten is a thing you get from flour," Bucky said, grabbing several of the regular white loaves, and two of the brown whole-wheat for Thor. "Pretty much all bread has it in it. But they make it special without it for people who are allergic to it."

"Oh." Steve considered this. "I'm not allergic to it, right?"

"Right. With as much bread as you eat—which is a lot for someone as little as you—we'd be in serious trouble otherwise."

"It would be sad if I couldn't eat bread," Steve agreed.

"You kind of look like some sort of story character who's the King of Bread right now," Bucky said with a smile. Steve was currently sitting in the bottom of the basket, all the bread Bucky had grabbed piled up around him and across his lap.

"It's kind of comfy," Steve said, patting the loaves of bread that were propping up his arms like the armrests of a throne. "But bread furniture is a bad idea. I'd eat it all and then have no place to sit."

"It might keep you nice and toasty when it got cold, though," Bucky said with a smirk.

Steve narrowed his eyes. "That's a terrible joke."

Bucky laughed. "Oh, what do you know? I'm hilarious."

Steve couldn't quite keep himself from giggling and Bucky smiled wider.

"Watch out, incoming cheese!" Bucky said, grabbing a packet of shredded cheese and tossing it into the cart. Steve failed to catch it and it smacked him in the face, as did the next five packets, though he did manage to catch the last one.

"Ha!" he exclaimed triumphantly.

They loaded up on jars of salsa—which Bucky did not throw—and bags of tortilla chips. Steve was really starting to disappear under the pile of groceries, but he declined Bucky's offer to dig him out. They got lettuce, onions, and avocados, which Steve enjoyed prodding at curiously.

"Don't poke too hard," Bucky warned him. "You don't want to squish them."

They swung through the breakfast aisle, and Bucky grabbed a box of Pop-Tarts. Steve had introduced him to those and they had been amazing. Now it was time to introduce them to Steve.

"Hey, Stevie, are you out of toothpaste?" Bucky asked as they moved down the toiletry aisle.

"No," Steve replied from behind the lettuce pyramid he was building.

"Are you almost out of toothpaste?" he clarified.

"Yeah, I think so," Steve said. Bucky tossed a box into the cart.

At the checkout, Steve dug himself out of his grocery pile by placing all the items on the conveyor belt in neat little groups—all the chips, all the bread, all the vegetables… The lady at the register thought that was just adorable.

"Oh, he is just precious," she said as Steve stacked up all the salsa jars neatly before climbing up onto Bucky and down again to get onto the floor. "Is he yours?"

"Little brother," Bucky said, looping an arm over Steve's shoulders and patting his arm affectionately. Steve grinned, pleased to be awarded such a title, though really, he'd been Bucky's little brother since, what, about 1920? '21?

They caught a taxi back to the Tower—the groceries were a little much for Bucky to manage on his own, and Steve, while willing, was not of great help with that many bags. They unloaded in the kitchen, and Steve seemed done with his cardboard construction for the night, sitting up cross-legged on the counter in fascination as he watched Stark make tacos and happily smashing the avocados up into guacamole without splattering _too_ much on the counter.

The castle seemed to be Steve's on and off project, something he worked on over the next couple of days when there wasn't anything else going on. He didn't invite anyone else to help, though Bucky was sure he would if they asked. It was nice for him to be able to have something on his own, though, so they all just watched it take shape and commented on how nice it was looking. Sometimes Steve would spend time carefully drawing and coloring in designs on the outside, and sometimes he seemed content to leave it partially decorated and would crawl inside with a pillow and a book.

On Thursday, they got a call from Fury for some sort of emergency mission that just couldn't wait. Bucky got the sense he was tired of them being on the bench anyway, but there were things exploding and people in trouble, so they couldn't really argue.

Since it was an all hands on deck situation, they were going to have to leave Steve there on his own. Stark gave Happy a comprehensive list of Steve's allergies and strict orders to keep an eye on him. Steve wasn't terribly happy about this arrangement—he didn't know Happy at all, though he was willing to trust him based on Stark's recommendation, and he was visibly worried about them all being away.

"Don't worry, Steve," Bucky told him. "It'll be alright. I know Happy's kind of big and scary-looking, but he's a nice guy."

"I'm not worried about me," Steve protested. "There's big explosions and bad robots with guns. One of you could get really hurt."

"How'd you know about the robots?" Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged. "I was sitting outside the door listening while you were all talking about it." His little brow furrowed in concern. "Please be careful."

"I will," Bucky promised, feeling awful for having to leave him here alone. He knelt down in front of him and hugged him. "You'll see. I'll be back just fine."

"Promise?" Steve whispered into his shoulder.

"Promise," Bucky said.

Steve looked up, catching Sam's eye where he stood behind Bucky. "All of you?"

"We'll all be careful," Sam promised, reaching down and ruffling his hair. "We've got a good team. We look out for each other."

"Okay," Steve nodded. He let go of Bucky and backed away. "I don't wanna make you late. Go save people," he said, and he mostly smiled.

The mission went alright, though there was some definite adjusting to the team dynamic with Steve gone. In the heat of battle, they would occasionally forget that Steve wasn't there to call a shot, or to punch his way through something, but they adjusted and worked around it, and they came out of it victorious and not much more battered than they would have been otherwise.

They got back in the middle of the afternoon, and Bucky was wondering if he could get to the medical wing and get that burn on his arm bandaged up before Steve saw it. He was waiting for them, though, at the bottom of the stairs just inside from the landing pad. But…

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., what's going on?" Bucky asked. At the bottom of the stairs was one of Steve's boxes. Steve was inside it, on top of a pillow and under a blanket, Franklin the Second tucked against his chin. There was a stack of books and an empty cup and plate next to the box.

"Captain Rogers is asleep," the A.I. said in a softer than normal voice.

"Yeah, I can see that much," Bucky said. "Why is he sleeping in a box at the bottom of the stairs?"

"And where is his babysitter?" Stark asked unhappily.

"I'm right here, Boss," Happy said, poking his head around the door. "You think I'd leave a nine-year-old up here alone?" he asked, looking offended that they would suggest that. "He wanted to wait here until you all came back, but he kept looking at me like I was freaking him out, so I grabbed a chair and I've been sitting on the other side of the wall. I couldn't get him to budge, so I brought him snacks, and after he fell asleep, I brought him the blanket and the bear."

"Oh," Stark said, mollified. "Alright."

"He's really been sitting here since we left?" Bucky asked.

"Aside from going to get the box and his books, yeah," Happy said.

They decided not to wake him up, so Thor carefully picked up the box with Steve inside and carried him downstairs, while Bucky headed off to the medical wing to get his arm covered up before Steve could see it. Wanda, Natasha, and Sam followed to see to their own various injuries. Steve was unhappily awake when Bucky got back to the main living area.

He was still in the box, but he was sitting up and scowling, arms folded across his chest. "You said you'd be careful," he said, his voice accusatory.

"I was careful," Bucky replied.

Steve shot a pointed look at the bandages on his arm.

Bucky sighed. "People get hurt on missions, Stevie. Even when they're careful. This isn't anything bad; I'll be fine in a day or two." Steve continued to glare, and Bucky sighed and sat down in front of the box. "What's the matter?" he asked gently.

"The matter?" Steve repeated. "The matter is that you got hurt. You were supposed to be okay."

Bucky reached out a hand. "Steve—"

"Til the end of the line!" Steve interrupted, pushing his hand away. "That's what you said! And you said you'd be okay! You promised!" His voice was starting to wobble angrily, and Bucky felt a sharp sting in his chest at the hurt in his little friend's eyes. "What if this _was_ the end of the line?!" he demanded. "What if—If you could get hurt being careful, then what if you got hurt even worse?! What if…" He sniffed. "What if…"

Bucky reached over and tugged him out of the box and into his lap. Steve struggled against the action, but Bucky just hugged him tighter to his chest. "Ssh," he soothed. "Ssh. I'm right here. Feel that heartbeat? Hear me breathing? I'm here. It's not the end of the line."

Steve stopped fighting and curled in against him, latching his little hands onto the front of Bucky's combat vest.

"It's not the end of the line," Bucky repeated. "I'm okay. I'm here." He rubbed a hand up and down his back. "I'm here."

They sat like that for several minutes, then Steve sniffed and raised his head. His bright blue eyes were still watery, but all the anger had drained out of them. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," he said in a small voice.

"It's okay," Bucky said, patting his hair gently. After all the times when they'd been teenagers and young adults and Bucky's worry about Steve had exploded into yelling, it was probably fair. "I know you didn't mean it."

Steve shook his head. "I didn't. I'm glad you're back."

"Me too," Bucky said. "And I really will be okay."

Steve nodded, and they sat there for a little bit longer.

"You okay?" Bucky asked him, once Steve seemed calmer.

Steve nodded again.

"Is it okay if I put you down, then?" he asked. He smiled down at him. "I think I need a shower."

That got a smile out of Steve. "Yeah," he agreed. "You don't smell very good."

"Well, you know, super-soldier, that comes with the super-strength, super-healing, and all that good stuff. But it also comes with super-sweat."

Steve giggled, and Bucky smiled and ruffled his hair.

* * *

_Big or little, Steve is always going to worry about his Bucky, but Bucky's always going to come home._

_Up next, Wanda teaches Steve how to make Sokovian food._


	12. Paprikash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve helps Wanda make lunch, and they talk about home and friends.

* * *

"Hi, Miss Wanda," Steve said, coming into the kitchen.

"Hello, Steve," Wanda replied, wondering if he had any idea how adorable he looked in his little Captain America t-shirt.

"Whatcha makin'?" he asked, eyeing the peppers she was chopping up curiously.

"Paprikash," she said.

"What's that?"

"It's a meal from Sokovia," she said.

"That's where you're from, right?" he asked, pulling a stool over so that he could climb up and look into the pot. "I read about it."

"You did?" she asked, surprised.

"Uh huh. Last time Miss Natasha took me to the library, I got a book about it."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to know about where you were from. That way if you wanted to talk about it or something, there would be somebody who knew what you were talking about."

Wanda smiled. That was terribly sweet.

"And," he said, smiling eagerly. "It had some words in it too!" He screwed up his face in concentration for a moment. "Zdravstvuyte," he said, absolutely butchering the pronunciation, but she thought he was probably trying to say hello.

"Hello to you too," she said with a laugh.

"Did I say it right?" he asked.

"Well…You were close." She coached him through it a couple of times, and he did get a little better. "You're getting better," she said. "But maybe you could start with an easier word. How about 'privyet'? That means 'hi'."

"Privyet," Steve repeated. "That one _is_ easier." He said it a couple more times, then nodded to himself. "So, is paprikash something you would eat at home?"

Wanda nodded. "My mother taught me how to make it."

"My ma taught me how to make spaghetti," Steve said.

"That's a good one to know."

"What's in paprikash?" he asked. "Besides this pepper right here, I mean."

Wanda smiled. "You make it with chicken," she said, nodding at a bowl of chicken she'd set out to thaw earlier. "Then you make a sauce with the peppers and some tomato and other spices, and you eat it on top of something like noodles or potatoes."

"Is it very spicy?"

"It can be," she said. "I prefer it with sweeter peppers myself. You can try a little piece to see, if you'd like."

Steve eyed the pepper on the cutting board suspiciously, then, somewhat to Wanda's amusement, he looked up at the ceiling. "Miss F.R.I.D.A.Y., do you know if I can eat this?"

"Your most updated list of allergies does not include peppers, nor are they related to anything on your list," the A.I. replied. "I believe you should be safe to go ahead. Just in case," she added. "There is an Epipen in the silverware drawer."

Wanda hadn't thought of that—she hadn't been there for the incident with the mango juice—but she was glad Steve had.

"Okay," Steve said. "Thank you, ma'am."

"You're welcome," F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied.

Steve studied the pepper slices a moment longer, then picked up the littlest one and gingerly bit off a tiny piece. He chewed it thoughtfully, then took a marginally larger bite. "It's kind of spicy," he decided. "But not too bad. And it's kind of sweet. I like it a lot better than those peppers Mr. Clint likes. I haven't eaten them, but he sat down next to me one time with some on his plate and it made my eyes burn."

Wanda laughed. "He does like his peppers hot," she agreed. She nodded at the pot. "Would you like to learn how to make it?"

"Yeah!" he agreed.

She showed him how to cut up the pepper, and after she was sure he was using the knife safely, she let him continue while she seasoned the chicken. When he announced that he was done, she had to laugh at how very neatly he'd sliced the pepper up. He'd even 'fixed' the pieces she had already cut so that they matched the ones he did.

"Did I do something wrong?" he wondered.

"No, no," she assured him. "I just wasn't expecting you to cut the pepper up so evenly."

"But it's okay?" he clarified.

"Yes, it's okay. The pieces are all very nice and symmetrical."

He smiled at that.

"Okay, so, let's put the pepper into this bowl, then wash the pepper juice off your hands. Then can you get the minced garlic out of the fridge?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, beginning the process of transferring his identically-proportioned pepper slices into the bowl. He washed his hands and walked to the fridge, then a harsh scraping sound on the floor pulled Wanda's attention around. Evidently, he could not reach the shelf with the minced garlic in the fridge, and was dragging his stool over so he could get it down. Wanda smiled at that.

"Okay," he said, coming back with the stool and the garlic. "What now?"

Wanda walked him through the next steps, and they measured out spices and broth and butter and she showed him the difference between simmering and boiling on the stovetop. She was reminded of being on the other side of this lesson with her mother, though she'd been even younger than Steve was now at the time. It was…surprisingly nice to pass this knowledge on.

Once they got the dish in the oven, the pair of them moved to the sink to clean the dishes while everything cooked.

"Do you get homesick for Sokovia?" Steve asked her.

"Sometimes, yes," she said. She didn't have anyone there anymore, and no real desire to return, but she still remembered fondly what it used to be. She looked down at Steve curiously. His attention was focused on the plate he was drying. "Do you get homesick?" she wondered. Although, seeing as he was technically still in New York, which was his home, perhaps _time_ sick was a better word.

Steve kept his attention on the plate a moment longer. "Yeah," he said. He sighed. "But it…It's for things that aren't there anymore. You know?"

"I do," she said. "My home—the people and places I knew in Sokovia—it's not there anymore either."

Steve nodded. "It helps for me to have Bucky," he said. "He tries real hard to make sure I feel at home here." He looked up at her sadly. "Is there anybody that can do that for you?"

She nodded. "Not anyone who was as close to me as Bucky is to you," she said, not allowing herself to think about what it might be like adjusting to this new life if Pietro were here with her. "But Clint is…he's very good at helping lost people feel found. And Sam, he's easy to talk to. Everyone, really, they're trying very hard to make me feel welcome." She smiled down at her little friend. "Actually," she added. "You're very good at it too."

"I am?" he asked, surprised.

"Mm-hmm." She decided not to bring up the sympathy and guidance she received from his older self, unsure of how sensitive he still was about that. "When you come and just talk to me, like right now, or when you invite me to join in things…" She smiled warmly and brushed a hand over his hair. "It makes me feel like you like having me around, and that makes it much easier to feel at home."

Steve hopped down off the stool and flung his little arms around her waist. "I _do_ like having you around," he told her, hugging her warmly.

She smiled happily and leaned down to press a soft kiss into his hair. "I like having you around too," she told him.

They finished with the dishes, and Wanda pulled two plates down from the cupboard. "It's almost time for lunch," she said. "Would you like some?"

"It's okay for me to have some?" he asked.

"Of course," she said with a laugh. "You did help make it, after all."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I mean, since you made it special to feel more at home and all."

"I'm sure," she told him. "I'm happy to share."

She dished up two servings while Steve got glasses—she suggested he fill his with milk, just in case the spiciness of the peppers built up too much as he ate. "I can teach you another Sokovian phrase if you'd like," she said. "Something we can toast this fine meal with."

"Okay," Steve said eagerly.

She scooped up some chicken, sauce, and a noodle onto her fork, gesturing for Steve to do the same. "So, you would say 'k nashey druzhbe'. It's a toast to friendship."

"K nashey druzhbe," he tried.

"Very good!" she said. She lifted her fork, and they clinked them together, carefully, so as not to spill anything on the table.

"K nashey druzhbe!"

* * *

_There's just something about a simple meal with friends that's hard to beat._

_Up next, Steve gets the sniffles, and he's very grumpy about it. Bucky's had practice with a cranky, sick Steve, though._


	13. S'not Very Nice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor little Steve has come down with a bug, and he's not a happy camper. But the team has chicken soup and popsicles and TV marathons all ready to go to cheer the little fella up.

* * *

Steve usually got up on his own—and usually before Bucky—so Bucky was a little surprised that Steve was still asleep when he got out of the shower. He would have thought he'd be helping Barton make breakfast like he normally did.

"Hey, Stevie, you gonna get up?" he asked, patting his shoulder.

"Mmf," Steve grunted.

"Come on, buddy, it's time for breakfast." He poked him in the side.

"Go 'way," Steve grumbled, rolling out of reach.

That was oddly grumpy for someone who was generally a morning person. Bucky sat down on the edge of Steve's mattress. "You okay?" he asked.

Steve grunted again and pulled the blanket up over his head. Bucky waited. The lump under the covers sighed. "I don' feel good," Steve huffed.

"You don't, huh?" Bucky asked. Steve had gotten sick a lot last time he'd been little—Bucky was actually kind of surprised he'd gone a month without anything happening (barring the allergy thing with the mangos)—but that didn't necessarily mean this was something to worry about right off the bat. "Like how?" he clarified. "Like you want to throw up?" The lump under the covers shook its head. "Like your head hurts?"

"Stop askin' me questions," Steve snapped. "I just feel bad."

Bucky did feel bad that the little guy was sick, but he had to smile at that. Steve was…well, for as often as he did it, he was terrible at being sick. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., Steve's not feeling well. What am I looking at?" He had to repeat the problem for the A.I. since she didn't listen in or record anything in the private living quarters. Saying her name brought her temporarily online, but she wouldn't have been there when Steve said he felt bad.

"I am reading a low-grade fever, Sergeant Barnes," she replied after a moment's scanning. "A slight difficulty in breathing which would indicate a build-up of phlegm, but not so serious as to require professional intervention," she continued, and Bucky took a moment to appreciate how intuitive she was—he was trying to figure out if this was hospital-worthy without scaring Steve. "I believe it is just a bug," she went on. "If it maintains its current trajectory, medication available in the Tower should be enough to make it runs its course in twenty-four to forty-eight hours."

"Okay," Bucky said. "Good. Could you tell me where some of that medication is?"

"DUM-E is already on the way up with it, sir."

"Thank you."

"Of course."

Bucky looked down at Steve, who was still under his blanket. "Sorry you're not feeling well, buddy," he said, resting a hand on his back. Steve made a grunting sort of noise, but didn't try to shake Bucky's hand off. He rubbed his back for a couple of minutes until the door opened and DUM-E rolled inside carrying a little basket which it deposited on the nightstand by Steve's bed.

"Thanks, DUM-E," Bucky said.

The robot chirped and left.

"Alright, Stevie," Bucky said, leaning over to pick up the thermometer. "Can you sit up for a minute?"

Steve, still under the covers, curled up in a little ball in response.

"Just for a minute?" Bucky asked. "I need to take your temperature."

"No."

"I could do it the other way, but that's going to be a lot less fun for both of us."

Steve sat up, and for someone as little and cute as he was, that was a pretty good murderous glare he was pulling off. He said nothing, but opened his mouth and allowed Bucky to put the thermometer in it. Bucky looked him over while he sat there. His nose was red and his eyes were a little runny, but he didn't look flushed, and when Bucky put a hand up to check his throat, he didn't feel anything swollen. The thermometer beeped, and as soon as Bucky took it out, Steve dropped back into his pillow with a grunt.

"Okay. 100.1," Bucky read. F.R.I.D.A.Y. was right—not enough to go to the hospital for. He looked through the little basket of medicine DUM-E had brought, picking out a fever reducer, as well as one for his sinuses when Steve sniffed loudly and turned his head so that his nose wasn't buried in the pillow. "Alright, I need you to sit up again," he told him.

"But why?" Steve whined.

"So you can take your medicine."

Steve sighed dramatically, but hoisted himself back upright, looking less homicidal than he did last time. He took the medicine without complaining, though he scrunched up his face in distaste. He stayed sitting up after he had swallowed it. "Bucky," he said.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I don't feel good," he said sadly, and he slumped over again, but this time it was to lean against Bucky's side.

Bucky looped an arm around him and rubbed a hand up and down his arm. "I'm sorry, Stevie," he said. "What can I do to help?"

Steve didn't seem sure.

"You want to eat something?"

Steve shook his head.

"You want to go back to sleep?"

Steve sort of shook and nodded his head at the same time.

Bucky smiled. "You want to just sit in my lap for a while?"

Steve nodded, and Bucky's smile widened.

"Okay," he said. "First, though," he went on, standing up. "You look like you're cold. Here, put this on." He grabbed one of his hoodies from his closet and handed it to Steve. A blanket would have worked just as well, but if Steve was feeling clingy, one of Bucky's hoodies would feel more homey.

Steve slid the hoodie over his head, and it was adorably huge on him. Bucky sat down and Steve crawled up into his lap, snuggling against his chest and tucking his head under his chin. Steve sniffled a few times and let out a pitiful little cough, but it wasn't long before he fell back asleep, snoring somewhat through his clogged sinuses. Bucky sat there a little longer, just holding on to him, smiling to himself whenever Steve let out a particularly loud snore. He turned and carefully lowered Steve back down onto the mattress, tucking his teddy bear under his chin and pulling the blanket back up over him. Steve hugged the bear tighter and made a snuffling noise, nuzzling his face down into the soft fur. Bucky smiled softly and ran a hand gently over Steve's hair, then stood up and crept quietly out of the room.

"Hey, where's the little guy?" Barton asked as Bucky walked into the kitchen. "I was gonna show him how to make breakfast tacos today."

"He's sick," Bucky said, snagging a couple of the aforementioned tacos and sitting down.

"Anything serious?" Sam asked, raising a concerned eyebrow.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y. said it was just a bug," Bucky said. "He took some medicine and went back to sleep."

It was odd, as the morning progressed, that it sort of felt like there was something missing. Steve wasn't a loud or demanding kid by any means, but they'd all gotten used to him being there, humming softly to himself while he drew, draping over the furniture to read, or talking or playing with one of them. The Avengers, as a group, were a pretty independent bunch, and while they all still did their own thing, there was a sort of present-ness now that hadn't been there before. Bucky realized with kind of a jolt that Little Steve was…He was their new normal now. He was still a key part of the family, but in a different role—Stark used to tease him about being the Team Mom with the way he looked out for everyone, but now he was the Team Little Brother—and everyone had just sort of…gotten used to it. Missions were happening again, and they'd adjusted to Steve's absence. Daily routines were formed around including him and making sure he was looked after. Plans for the future were talked about like Steve was still going to be little when they happened. Bucky had actually been thinking last night about needing to talk to Stark about getting some paperwork worked up for Steve so they could enroll him in school after the summer was over. The fact that that had seemed like a natural thing to do scared him a little bit.

He got up to check on Steve, who was still asleep (and snoring _very_ loudly). If he was still asleep by the time lunch rolled around, Bucky would make him get up and eat something, but for now, the sleep was good. He stood there for a few minutes and just watched his little friend. No one had given up on trying to figure out how to return him to his adult state, but all anyone was turning up was a whole lot of nothing. They were getting used to this, and that was weird, and maybe it was bad, but what else could they do? Bucky missed the big guy like hell, but he was awfully fond of this little one too. He sighed. He honestly didn't know what to do here, so until they found something that looked like a solution, he guessed he would just keep doing what he had been.

A little while later, he was in the living room playing cards with Sam when he heard the sound of little feet coming down the hall. Steve appeared in the doorway, looking grumpy and not quite awake, with a truly fantastic case of bed hair. He still had Bucky's hoodie on over his pajamas, which hung down around his calves, and he was holding on to Franklin the Second's foot, dragging the bear along behind him. "Hey, Stevie," Bucky said. "How you feeling?"

Steve just sort of grunted and continued his journey into the living room. He walked to the couch and shoved Bucky's arms out of his way so he could climb up into his lap, curling up into a little ball. A quick look up at Sam showed Bucky the counselor was trying very hard not to smile.

"Any better?" Bucky asked. Steve just grunted again. Bucky put a hand to his forehead, and he still felt a little warm. "Here," he said, and Steve made an unhappy little noise as Bucky readjusted him, then relaxed as Bucky rested his metal hand on his forehead. "How's that?" he asked, figuring the cool metal would feel good on his warm skin.

Steve was quiet for a moment before muttering, "S'better," in a somewhat begrudging tone. Sam couldn't quite keep from laughing then, though he masked it reasonably well with a cough. Bucky smiled and patted Steve's arm.

They finished their game, then Sam got up and offered to make lunch. "What do you want to eat, Steve?" he asked.

"Don't want nothin'," Steve grumbled.

"You sure?" Sam asked. "Some toast, maybe?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Soup?"

"No."

"You should try something," he pressed. "It'll help you feel better."

Steve said nothing in response, but he stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry, then pulled the hood of the hoodie up over his face and curled into an even smaller ball.

Sam doubled over in silent laughter, and Bucky was having a hard time not laughing himself. "Steve," he chastised as sternly as he could manage. "I know you're not feeling good, but you don't need to be rude."

Steve was quiet for a minute, then a muffled, "Sorry, Sam," floated up from under the hoodie.

"It's alright, man," Sam said, still smiling.

"Go ahead and make him something," Bucky mouthed. Kid did still need to eat.

They sat there for a little while as Sam banged around in the kitchen, Steve sniffling and coughing, and Bucky rubbing circles on his back. After a little while, Sam came back in with a bowl of chicken noodle soup, some crackers, and a glass of ginger ale. "Alright, Stevie," Bucky said, patting his back. "Lunch time."

"I don't wanna eat," Stevie whined, making no move to uncurl himself from his little huddle.

"I know, but you need to try a little bit, okay? Give your body some fuel so it can fight this thing off a little better, huh?"

Steve whined and shifted around but still didn't sit up.

"Come on, Steve," Bucky said, poking him gently in the side until he sat up with a growl. Bucky smiled in response to his glare and reached up and flipped the hood back so he could see the rest of his face. "See, look, Sam made you some nice soup, and there's some plain crackers and some ginger ale to help your stomach feel better. Just eat a little bit, alright?"

"Alright," Steve huffed. "But if I throw up on you, s'your fault."

"Noted," Bucky said. He pulled the coffee table closer so Steve could reach the bowl, then got up to go get the basket of medicine from Steve's room. Steve crawled up into his lap as soon as he sat back down, almost spilling his soup as he did so. He took the medicine without complaining, and though it took a while, he finished the ginger ale and crackers and about two thirds of the soup.

"Can I stop now?" he asked, snorting back a nose full of snot and then yawning.

"Okay," Bucky said, leaning over to set the bowl back on the table. "You did good, Steve."

Steve sort of hummed and shuffled back down into his little ball, retreating further into the hoodie. Franklin the Second was sitting on the couch, and Steve reached out and snagged his leg, pulling the bear back up against his chest with a sleepy little sigh.

"You want to go back to bed?" Bucky asked.

"Nn-nh," Steve replied, shifting a little more so that his forehead was pressed against Bucky's metal arm.

"Okay," Bucky said softly, reaching down and stroking Steve's hair. Steve made a snuffling sound, and it was just another minute or two before his breathing evened out in sleep. Bucky smiled to himself and kept petting his hair.

"Hey, man," Sam said quietly, stepping back around to the front of the couch. He smiled down at Steve's sleeping form. "I saved you some lunch back in the kitchen, but since it looks like you're a little tied up right now…" He gestured with the bowl of soup he was holding.

"Thank you," Bucky said, accepting the bowl, transferring it to his left hand since he couldn't really move that one with Steve laying on it, freeing up his right hand to use the spoon. "Sorry about little Sourpuss here," he said, referring to the argument about lunch and nodding down at Steve.

Sam chuckled. "Don't worry about it. It was actually pretty cute. He always get like that when he's sick?"

"Yeah," Bucky nodded. "Believe me, it was less cute last time we were nine and I'd been putting up with it for six years already. I remember one time his ma couldn't get him to eat for, like, three days, and she was really worried, and I told him I would sit on him and force feed him if he didn't eat it on his own." He shook his head and chuckled. "Kid was _pissed_. Worked, though."

"The threat, or actually sitting on him?" Sam wondered.

"Just the threat," Bucky said. "I had to use it a couple times since then, but I never actually had to do it."

Sam laughed. "I gotta tell you, I kind of want to see that."

Bucky smiled. "I'm sure you'll get the chance some day."

Bucky ate his lunch and Steve kept sleeping. "He snores awfully loudly for someone so small," Wanda said, coming into the living room.

"He really does," Bucky agreed. He didn't usually snore, but it was amazing the volume those little lungs could produce when he did. "Congested sinuses don't help."

Wanda rounded the couch and smiled, placing one hand over her heart. "Oh, that is so cute!" she said, looking down at Steve with his over-sized hoodie and teddy bear. "Aw." She watched him for a moment before seeming to remember what she came into the living room for. "Natasha and I were going to go to the store. Do you need anything?"

"Would you mind picking up some popsicles for him?" he asked. It might be less of a fight to get Steve to eat something like that.

"Of course."

She left, and Bucky very carefully moved Steve off of his lap and onto the couch so he could get up and go to the bathroom. When he came back, Steve was still sleeping soundly, so he draped a blanket over him and left him to rest. He went to help Clint with something, telling F.R.I.D.A.Y. to call him if it looked like Steve needed anything, and was surprised when he came back into the living room to find Thor stretched out across the couch Steve had been on with Steve curled up like a cat on his chest. One of Thor's hands was curled over Steve's back, scratching it gently and enhancing the cat comparison. They were watching TV.

"Hey, guys," Bucky said. "What are you watching?"

"Chip and the Lady Joanna," Thor said. "There is great distress at the moment over the resizing of the bathroom."

"Couldn't've took that wall out anyhow," Steve muttered stuffily. "S'load-bearing."

"Indeed," Thor agreed. "Though the placement of the closet on the other side concealed that fact initially."

Steve sniffed and shrugged, conceding the point. Thor looked up and chuckled softly as he caught Bucky's puzzled expression. How in the hell did Steve know about home renovation? "Steve and I have observed many chapters of this show," Thor explained. "He is well-versed in their language."

Bucky perched on the arm of the couch, still somewhat confused. Surprise joined his confusion and his eyebrows just about went up into his hair when Thor reached up with a tissue to wipe away the snot leaking from Steve's nose and Steve let him.

The scene shifted from the bathroom crisis to one of the bedrooms. "Ah, this one has much improved!" Thor declared. "That monstrosity of a fireplace has been removed."

"It looks a lot better," Steve agreed. "'specially since you c'n see the window now." He snorted disdainfully. "Knew she was gonna do that wall in shiplap, though."

"She does seem to have a passion for it," Thor agreed.

"Shiplap's stupid," Steve declared. He paused and sniffed again. "The french door looks nice, though. She's good at those."

Bucky watched the two of them curiously, their conversation about recessed lighting and HVAC systems doing nothing to allay his confusion. Apparently this was a regular thing Steve and Thor did, and he had no idea how he hadn't known that. Also, sure, Thor was frequently interested in stuff that no one would have pegged him as enjoying, but Bucky did wonder what draw there was for a nine-year-old in a home improvement show. Two hours later, though, he found himself still sitting there watching it with them, so there was _something_ oddly compelling about it.

It was time for supper when the home improvement marathon ended, and Steve, having been awake for nearly three hours straight now, was getting tired and cranky again. "G'off me," he complained, swatting at Bucky's hand as he tried to feel his forehead and gauge his temperature.

"Just trying to see how you're doing," Bucky said. "You're still feeling a little warm."

"Big surprise," Steve muttered. "Since I got a fever an' all. A+ diagnosis, there."

"Being rude again, buddy."

"Yeah, well, you're being annoying again," Steve snapped.

Bucky stood up, restraining himself from rolling his eyes. "Go wash up for dinner."

"Not hungry," Steve pouted.

"Didn't ask if you were," Bucky replied. Steve glared at him, then sneezed loudly, barely getting his hands up in time to cover his mouth. They were covered in snot when he pulled them away. "That's gross, man," Bucky said, unable to keep his nose from wrinkling. He gestured toward the hallway. "Bathroom."

Steve looked like he wanted to argue some more, but knew the snot-covered hands invalidated whatever he was going to say. He huffed and stomped off to the bathroom.

Thor was watching from a polite distance, making a show of folding up the throw across the back of the couch to stay out of the argument. He looked up now with a smile. "Being ill would seem to put him in a most foul disposition."

"Yeah, it does," Bucky sighed.

"You handle it well, my friend," Thor said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Steve had no desire to eat the pasta the rest of them were having, and he looked ready to dig in his heels about eating more of the soup left over from lunch. He showed some signs of caving when Natasha mentioned the popsicles she and Wanda had gotten for him (they'd picked them up from the pharmacy, and they were supposed to have electrolytes and vitamins and things like that in them), and Bucky figured since Steve wasn't cranky with her right now, that he'd pull back and let her talk him into eating.

"You're good," he whispered to Natasha a little later. Steve had consented to eat half a piece of toast with strawberry jelly on it in exchange for a popsicle in a flavor of his choice.

Natasha chuckled. "Comes with the job," she said. "I talk people into things all the time." She nodded to where Steve was currently snuggled up in Wanda's lap, toast crumbs all over the front of his hoodie, more or less happily eating a purple popsicle. "Has he been a complete terror today?"

"Just a minor one," Bucky said with a smile. "You sound like you're familiar with Sick Steve."

Natasha looked back at him and laughed. "Sick Steve, no, but I did put up with three weeks of Steve with multiple fractures in his leg." She closed her eyes and shook her head at the memory. "Longest three weeks of my life."

Bucky chuckled. "That sounds awful. No, he's been flip-flopping between being all cute and pathetic and clingy and being a snotty little ball of attitude."

"Emphasis on the snot?" Natasha asked as Steve sneezed again. He failed to cover his mouth in time this time, and Wanda pushed her half-finished plate of pasta away gingerly.

Bucky laughed and went to scoop up some more uncontaminated pasta for Wanda while Steve blushed and apologized.

After dinner, Steve spent a long time in the bathtub soaking in the warm water—long enough that Bucky went and checked on him twice to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep and drowned. He stumbled out blearily into the living room when he was done, wearing a clean pair of pajamas and dragging Franklin the Second along behind him.

"Don't you want to go to bed, Stevie?" Bucky asked as Steve climbed back up into his lap.

"No," Steve said, swallowing down a massive yawn. "S'boring in there."

"Boring, huh?"

"Mm."

"Well, you can sit in here with me if you want and watch Tony and Clint play their racing game." Some sort of video game competition was happening on the other side of the living room.

"'kay," Steve said sleepily. He shifted back down into the little ball he'd spent most of the morning curled up in. "Hey, Bucky?" he said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"'m sorry I was mean," he said.

Bucky smiled and patted his back. "It's okay, Stevie," he assured him. "I know you've been having a rough day."

"Sorry," he muttered again. He turned his runny eyes up to blink at Bucky. "I love you," he said, like he was worried his earlier attitude might have caused Bucky to doubt that.

Bucky smiled warmly and put a hand to the side of his face, running his thumb across his cheek. "I know," he assured him. "I love you too."

Steve smiled, sniffed, and curled back up into his little ball, one hand reaching out to curl around Bucky's metal arm. He dozed in and out for a while, waking up whenever a particularly loud cheer came from the gamers, or when a big cough rattled him awake. Eventually Bucky suggested again that maybe it was time for bed, and Steve nodded in sleepy agreement.

Bucky carried him back to their room, but Steve rolled around to sit up instead of letting Bucky tuck him in. "C'n I have 'nother one of your sweaters?" he asked.

"Do you need more blankets?" Bucky asked. He could round up a couple more if Steve was worried he was going to be cold.

"S'enough," Steve mumbled. "Jus'…" He sniffed and blinked up at Bucky. "I like your sweaters. Makes me feel better. S'all soft an'…" He shrugged. "Smells like you."

Bucky swallowed down an unexpected lump in his throat and nodded. "Sure," he said softly. He got up and picked another one out, then helped Steve maneuver his tired limbs into the sleeves. He gave him another dose of medicine before he tucked him in and sat down beside him, running his fingers over his hair. "Go on to sleep," he said. "I gotcha."

"M'kay," Steve yawned, eyes already shut. "Night, Bucky," he whispered.

"Goodnight, Stevie."

* * *

_Sick Steve may not not be the easiest to take care of, but Bucky's got this. He's always got Steve. (And I'm not sure what the draw in home improvement shows is either, but I can sure sit down and watch Chip and Joanna fix houses for hours without realizing where the time went.)_

_Up next, Tony takes Steve to a baseball game._


	14. Take Me Out To The Ball Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one comes to you by special request of usaonetwothree. Steve loves baseball, and he's seen it on TV, but Tony decides to do one better and take him to, in Steve's words, "a for real baseball game" in Yankee Stadium.

* * *

Not that Tony Stark ever spent a great deal of time around kids, but the longer Kiddie Cap was around, the more Tony got the feeling that he wasn't a typical kid. The P.R. stunts he'd done at local schools left him with this impression of noise and sticky hands and whining. Steve was self-entertaining and sometimes quiet enough that it was possible to forget he was there, he was rarely sticky, and Tony had never once heard the kid whine. (Of course, he'd never heard the big guy whine either, so maybe he just didn't know how.) He just…he seemed content with whatever was on offer, and Tony couldn't remember being that chill as a kid.

Even though he'd been in 'the future' for a little while now, there were still little things the kid said or did that sometimes rubbed Tony the wrong way. Okay, maybe those weren't the right words—it wasn't like Steve annoyed him. But there were just little comments or actions—like Steve asking where he should put the foil from his baked potato so it could be washed and saved, or being remorseful to the point of tears about catching the knee of a new pair of pants on his bedframe and tearing a hole in them, or making an innocuous comment about how nice it was that fridge always had enough food in it for everybody—that just reminded Tony how tough Steve's childhood had been, and it made him sad.

Kids should be worried about things like finishing up their favorite crayon too fast, or missing their teddy bear while it was in the washing machine, not where their next meal was coming from, so Tony found himself making it his mission to make sure the little guy had everything he needed. He did occasionally butt heads with Barnes on this, seeing as their definitions of 'everything he needed' came from different dictionaries. Tony leaned more toward the give-him-whatever-his-little-heart-might-even-begin-to-think-of-desiring school of thought, whereas Barnes tended more toward the stop-feeding-him-so-many-cookies-or-he-won't-eat-his-dinner side of things. And, okay, fair enough, Tony was new at this whole parenting gig, so he tended to defer to Barnes' judgement. But every now and then, he just _had_ to spoil the kid.

"Guess what we're doing today?" Tony asked at breakfast.

"I don't know, but I'm suspicious of your tone," Natasha said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"What?" Tony protested. "This is my I-have-a-brilliant-plan voice."

"Exactly," Clint agreed, pointing at him with his fork. "Your last brilliant plan set the fire alarm off at three in the morning, and I had to go outside in my pajamas."

"You're just bitter that the world got to see you in your fuzzy unicorn slippers," Tony said. He held up a hand, blocking his view of Clint's face. "And you don't get to guess anymore. Steve! Guess what we're doing!"

"Uh…" Steve said, pausing with a bite of waffle halfway to his mouth as Tony caught him off guard. "Well, it sounds like you think it'll be fun." Tony nodded encouragingly and Steve smiled. "Are we going to the park?"

"Even better."

"The zoo?"

"Better."

"The moon!"

"Okay, maybe not quite _that_ good," Tony admitted while Barnes laughed. "I don't have a spaceship. No, we're going to a Yankees game!"

Steve's mouth dropped open. "For real?"

"Yep. Got us a box. The whole team's coming."

Steve was gaping at him like a fish, and even Barnes looked surprised. "Like, a for real baseball game?" Steve clarified. Tony nodded. "At the stadium with tickets for seats and everything?"

"Sure. How else would you watch a game?" Tony wondered.

Steve shrugged. "Me an' Bucky would sometimes climb up a tree outside the stadium to watch. But we get to actually go inside and watch the game from up close?"

"We sure do," Tony said. "Front row right behind the dugout."

Clint let out a low whistle. "Those are good seats."

"Told you it was a brilliant plan," Tony said. He clapped Steve on the shoulder. "Sound like a brilliant plan to you?"

"It sounds like a great plan!" Steve enthused, jumping up from his seat. "Let's go!"

"Slow your roll there, buddy," Tony chuckled, catching Steve's shoulder and pushing him back down into his chair. "It's, like, three hours 'til the game starts. We've got time." He nodded down at Steve's plate. "Finish your waffle."

"Oh, yeah."

In hindsight, maybe he should have waited to bring up the game until closer to time to go. Steve was vibrating with so much excited energy that he almost gave himself an asthma attack and had to lie down on the couch for a little while.

"Sorry," Tony said with chagrin.

"Don't worry about it," Barnes said. "I think he would have done this whenever you told him; so at least he's doing it at home." He smiled at Tony. "Hey, thanks for doing this. That was really thoughtful."

"Oh, well…" Tony said awkwardly, waving the words away. Normally, he reveled in praise, but Barnes didn't give it out much, which made this dangerously close to feeling like a _moment_. There was also the creeping realization that all this hanging out in his lab together and chatting, or going out to do fun stuff, or making dessert together, or whatever it was he did with Little Steve might all be things he wished his dad had done with him, and that was just blatantly crossing the line into soul-searching, and nobody had time for that.

Barnes, thankfully, moved the conversation on. "Question about these seats: Are they shaded, or do I need to pack sunscreen? If it's out in the sun, Steve'll be glowing like a stop light by the end of the day."

"Sunscreen, definitely," Tony said. "I figured he might prefer being closer to the action over air-conditioning."

"Yes, he will," Barnes agreed. "Alright, so, sunscreen, and I'm gonna go find him a hat."

Eventually they loaded up and headed for the game. Everyone was wearing Yankees gear—they'd even managed to dig up a jersey for Thor somewhere, who had no idea how baseball worked but was, as usual, very excited. Steve was wearing a light long-sleeved shirt and jeans, minimizing potential sunburn, and Barnes had scrounged up a hat for him from somewhere that was a little too big and that, Tony had to admit, was adorable as hell.

Most of the ride to the stadium was spent with Steve eagerly explaining the rules of the game to Thor and Wanda. He started bouncing up and down in his seat as they pulled into the parking lot. "Can you believe it, Bucky?" Steve exclaimed, clinging to Barnes' metal arm and swinging back and forth as they crossed the parking lot. "A real baseball game! In the real Yankee Stadium!" He threw back his head and made a weird sort of growling noise, evidently having run out of words to express his enthusiasm. "I'm so excited!"

"Really?" Sam said with a chuckle. "I couldn't tell."

Steve paused in his swinging on Barnes' arm to narrow his eyes suspiciously at Sam and try to figure out if he was serious or not. Then he shrugged and resumed his swinging, then launched himself at Tony and wrapped his little arms around his leg and almost knocked him over. "Thanks for bringing us, Mr. Tony," he said earnestly.

"You're welcome, kid," Tony replied, smiling down at that excited little face. He peeled Steve off his leg so he could keep walking and took the little guy's hand in one of his. "Now, this is a big place, so stick close, but…" He gestured theatrically as they moved through the entryway. "Welcome to baseball of the future."

If Steve's jaw hadn't been attached to his skull, it would have been on the floor by now. He was whirling his head around like he didn't know where to look first, trying to take in all the flashing screens, shiny glass and chrome, and displays of baseball memorabilia. To Tony's amusement, he seemed to find the x-ray machine at security equally as fascinating as the rest of his surroundings.

"Would it show my skeleton if I went in there?" he wondered, eyeing the conveyor belt and screen.

"Probably, but let's avoid the radiation, huh?" Barnes said.

The crowd got bigger once they were through security as people milled around souvenir shops and snack stands before the game. Tony looked down to make sure somebody had hold of Steve, and was surprised to see him smiling up expectantly at Thor, who grinned broadly and hoisted the little guy up onto his shoulders.

"The God of Thunder gives piggy back rides?" Tony asked.

"They do this all the time," Clint said, as if Tony should have known that. "Ooh! Cotton candy!" he exclaimed, then rushed off to one of the snack stands, dragging a perplexed Wanda behind him.

Tony pointed the rest of them in the direction of their seats. Had Clint cared to wait, he would have discovered they had a box with wait service. Tony Stark did not stand in line for snacks.

"Wow!" Steve exclaimed, wriggling down from his perch at a speed that showed a frightening lack of regard for his own safety. Thor's hand around his arm brought him a little more solidly down to earth. "We're so close! We're practically on the field!" He leaned over the front railing eagerly, Barnes twisting a casual, secure hand in the back of his shirt as he did so. They were close, but it was still a pretty good way down.

"These are awesome seats," Sam said, settling down into his chair happily. He nudged Steve with an elbow. "You know, we're close enough that there will probably be a couple of balls flying our way."

Steve's already wide eyes widened at this pronouncement. Tony decided to wait until later to tell him he had a little meet-and-greet arranged with the players.

Their server came into the box to introduce himself and see if they needed anything. He did a little fangirl thing upon realizing who was sitting in his box, and Tony smiled and promised him some autographs later. He also pointed out Steve and his severe peanut allergy and made sure the kid knew not to bring anything that had so much as been in the vicinity of a peanut into the box. (That did rule out a couple of Tony's favorite game snacks, but it wasn't like there weren't plenty of options left.)

Clint and Wanda returned with their cotton candy before the anthem started—apparently, Wanda had never had cotton candy, hence the excited dragging. The players made their way out on to the field, and Steve waved at them and squeaked excitedly when a few of them waved back. They all stood up for the anthem, Steve quietly whispering instructions to Thor before it started playing. Then the game began and they cheered and took their seats. Steve settled down into a seat between Tony and Barnes, wriggling in gleeful anticipation.

As the game progressed, Tony thought that this was the loudest he'd ever heard Little Steve get. The kid was cheering and hollering, and he was yelling insults at the opposing team that were so dated they made Tony snort into his drink. (His favorite might have been when he called the umpire a jingle-brained dewdropper, though he also enjoyed watching Sam choke on his pretzel when Steve called the opposing pitcher a Palooka. The kid's Brooklyn accent really came out with the insults.) He was tempted to reprimand him with a sharp, "Language!", but he would have missed the joke completely.

With snacks so readily available, Tony was inclined to give Steve free rein of the menu, but Barnes had no qualms about arching a negative eyebrow and slowing things down. "Kid could stand to gain some weight," Tony said quietly, leaning back behind Steve so he wouldn't hear them arguing. (Dear Lord, was he actually co-parenting Captain America with the Winter Soldier?!)

"Yes, he could," Barnes agreed. "But he's not going to do that by eating until he throws up all over the place. I'm not saying don't feed him; I'm just saying slow it down."

Tony sighed. "You do make a good point," he admitted begrudgingly, and Barnes smirked a little and turned back to the game. Steve finished his soft pretzel and Tony refrained from offering him anything else until lunchtime rolled around.

Everyone put in their orders for lunch, and their server's eyes kept getting wider and wider as Thor's order continued to grow. Barnes checked his watch and pulled his backpack out from under his seat, grabbing a bottle of sunscreen and reapplying it to Steve, who accepted with only minor squirming.

"You planning some kind of trip?" Sam asked, eyeing the backpack as Barnes worked on the sunscreen. Tony leaned over and peered into the backpack—there was another bottle of sunscreen, multiple bottles of water which he probably wasn't supposed to have brought into the park but had gotten in somehow and kept making Steve drink at regular intervals, a little first aid kit and a couple of Epi-pens, another hat, a spare shirt and what looked like a pair of socks, and that was just the layer Tony could see.

"I was a Boy Scout," Barnes said with a quirk of an eyebrow that made it hard to tell if he was joking or not.

After Steve was done with the sunscreen, Barnes passed the bottle around. While Wanda was explaining to Thor what it was for, Steve leaned over and tapped Tony's arm. "Excuse me, Mr. Tony, what is that you're eating?"

Tony chuckled. "You trying to get me to give you some of my lunch?"

Steve looked offended that Tony would suggest such a thing. "No!" he insisted. "I just don't know what that is."

Tony laughed at the affronted expression on the kid's face that looked an awful lot like Big Steve. "Sorry." He looked down at his lunch. "Have we seriously never had nachos since you got here?"

Steve shook his head.

"Right. Well, the nacho," Tony began, picking up a chip to demonstrate. "Is a masterful feat of snacking engineering. You start with the chip. It has a nice salty flavor, but doesn't have anything too strong going on to distract you from the other flavors. It's sturdy, so it holds your toppings and forms the bedrock of the dish. You need a chip that can hold a good mouthful on top without breaking, otherwise the whole thing becomes subpar."

Steve was listening just as intently as if Tony was trying to explain how to build an arc reactor.

"Then you've got your meat," Tony went on, enjoying the dissertation. "You've got options there, most of which are acceptable, but me, I like chicken. Nicely grilled, just a little crispy on the edges, but still nice and juicy. Then you get your vegetables, which is where you create texture to enhance the overall snacking experience. Onions have good crunch; black beans are soft and a good filler; black olives give you a little more juice without getting mushy, and jalapenos are there not so much for texture as for kick. Tomatoes are too juicy and make things soggy, and only heathens like Clint put them on nachos."

He gave Steve a moment to absorb this information and to shoot a haughty eyebrow over to Clint, who had stuck his tongue out at him.

"The crowning glory of the nacho is the cheese," Tony said. "Now, you can get your gourmet nachos with all kinds of fancy cheese on top, but the supreme nacho has cheap, gooey, uncomfortably orange and difficult-to-actually-label ballpark cheese. I mean, look at this." He tilted the chip to let the cheese run off one corner, where it began a slow, oozing journey back to the plate. "That is a thing of beauty right there." He tipped the nacho back up before he lost the cheese and popped the chip in his mouth, crunching loudly.

"Add guacamole or sour cream as desired, but the quality on those is harder to police when you don't know the chef, so I often leave them out. And, boom." He popped another one in his mouth. "Nachos."

Steve was still watching him, impressed, and Tony really did appreciate the little guy's undivided attention to his long-winded speeches that everyone else rolled their eyes at. He grinned. "Here," he said, holding out a chip. "Try one. Oh, wait." He flicked the jalapeno off the top. "You may not want the spice. But go for it."

Steve took the chip in both hands, cradling it carefully so as not to spill any toppings. He studied it for a moment, trying to figure out where to bite, then bit into it with a loud crunch. His eyes widened happily as he chewed. "That's really good," he said. He finished it off, then wiped an errant blob of cheese off his mouth with his napkin. "Thanks, Mr. Tony," he said. He held up his as-yet-untouched chili cheese dog that had been waiting in his lap. "You want a bite of my hotdog?" he offered in exchange.

Tony didn't particularly want any, but Steve seemed eager to share, so he thanked him and took a bite. Steve was grinning as he handed it back, so he'd made the right move. Barnes was smirking at him over the top of Steve's head, and Wanda was watching from her seat with a sappy smile. Tony busied himself with making sure he hadn't gotten chili in his goatee and ignored both of them.

Steve was normally a neat eater—sometimes almost obsessively so, like when he cut his waffle into perfectly symmetrical squares this morning—but as evidenced by his earlier yelling of insults, this was apparently an occasion where decorum went out the window. There was chili all over his face by the time he was done, and Tony understood now why Barnes had brought a spare shirt in his backpack. He'd also brought along a pack of wet wipes, which he pulled out now and used several of to clean Steve's face and hands before letting him put the clean shirt on.

The game went on, every other inning punctuated by Barnes forcing Steve to put on more sunscreen and drink some water. Steve complied with minimal protests. (As far as Tony could tell, he didn't actually mind the directives, he just didn't like the way the sunscreen smelled.) When the crowd started to sing, Steve happily hopped up to teach Thor the words to 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame'. They made quite a picture, Thor standing up and balancing Steve on his hip with one arm, the other flung out joyfully. The arm of Steve's that wasn't holding on to Thor was waving back and forth like he was conducting the crowd, and they both had their heads thrown back and were singing with abandon. Tony was pretty sure he wasn't the only one snapping pictures of that.

They'd ducked a couple of wayward balls flying over their seats, but so far anything flying their way was a little too high or off to the side to catch. In the final inning, a foul ball finally came flying right at them, and Clint and Natasha both dove for it. For possibly the first time ever, Clint outmaneuvered the Black Widow and came up clutching the ball victoriously.

"Wow!" Steve clapped appreciatively. "That was a great catch, Mr. Clint!"

"Thanks," Clint said, doing a little mock curtsy and making Steve giggle. He flicked his wrist and tossed the ball in Steve's direction. "Here you go."

Steve's hands automatically went out to catch it, and he clutched it tightly in both hands for a moment, staring at it in wonder, then stretched out his arms and offered it back. "Oh, no, you caught it. I don't wanna take it from you."

Tony almost rolled his eyes at that one. The kid really had been that wholesome, all-American guy his whole life, hadn't he?

"Nah, you keep it," Clint insisted, waving a hand. "What am I gonna do with it?"

"Are you sure?"

"Sure." Clint nodded out at the field. "Maybe when the guys head back in after the game, we could try to catch one of them to sign it for you."

Steve gasped excitedly, then hugged the ball to his chest. "Wow. Thanks, Mr. Clint."

Clint reached over and ruffled his hair. "Sure thing, Cap."

The Yankees pulled ahead to win in the end, and there was much cheering and yelling and waving of pennants. There was even a rumble of thunder and a couple cracks of lightning before Sam put an arm on Thor's shoulder and reminded him to calm down a little.

"Where are you hurrying off to?" Natasha asked as Tony stood up. "If we go now, we're gonna have to fight our way to the car."

"Who said I was going to the car?" Tony asked. He nodded to the gate at the front of the box that an attendant was coming up to unlock. "We've got a meet and greet with the team," he said nonchalantly, smirking as everyone stared back at him in surprise. "Did I not mention that?"

Barnes chuckled and scooped Steve up as he moved to join Tony at the stairs. "You're just full of surprises today. Come on, Stevie; let's go meet the team."

Steve's eyes were the size of dinner plates as they headed down to the field. Barnes moved to set him down once they hit the ground, but Steve clung to his side, his little feet dangling inches above the grass. "I'm really allowed to walk on the grass?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Barnes said with a smile.

"I get to walk on the field inside Yankee Stadium?" Steve asked, still not setting his feet down.

"All-access," Tony said with a smile, throwing his arms out. "Walk wherever you like. Hell, go out there and run the bases if you want."

Steve's mouth dropped open, and Tony laughed as amazement at the offer washed away Steve's disapproval of Tony's choice of language.

They met the team then, and this was no perfunctory meet and greet—they got a substantial chunk of time on the field, and the team was incredibly excited to get to meet the Avengers. (Lest any of them think that America's hero would miss America's game so cavalierly, Sam made sure to explain that Cap had gotten called away for a very hush-hush mission.) Steve was clinging to Barnes's metal hand shyly, staring at everything in awe, but these guys seemed to be used to young fans, and soon he was surrounded by people crouching down to his level with friendly smiles and handshakes and offers to sign his baseball.

"I know I said it already," Barnes said, arms crossed over his chest and smiling as he watched Rodriguez and Gregorius take Steve out to run around the bases. "But thank you for doing this."

"Oh, it was nothing," Tony said, smiling as Steve jogged to first.

"No," Barnes said, turning to look at him. "It's really something. This was always something Steve wanted to do. I mean, going to a real game. This extra team stuff, that wasn't a thing that happened back then. But a real game…He and I did that, when we got older. But he doesn't remember that now," he said, and Tony caught a touch of wistfulness there. He knew Steve had been helping Barnes piece back together memories of his old life, and he hadn't really thought yet what it had to be like to become the keeper of the memories when you only had a fraction of them yourself. He hadn't thought about it before and he very much did not want to think about it now, and it seemed like Barnes didn't want to either, because he shook his head and looked back out at Steve and smiled warmly.

"This really is amazing, Stark," Barnes said, and he looked back at Tony and smiled. "Thank you."

Tony nodded, feeling like it wouldn't be right to just brush it off with some kind of platitude. "I thought he needed something like this," he said.

"He did," Barnes agreed. He clapped Tony warmly on the shoulder before walking over to greet Steve, who was running back to them happily, leaving Tony standing there in shock at the realization that the Winter Soldier had just voluntarily committed an act of friendly physical contact toward him.

"Bucky!" Steve cried happily. "Did you see me? I ran the bases in _Yankee Stadium_! And Mr. Rodriguez showed me how to slide into home!"

"Yeah, I saw," Barnes said, grinning. "That's awesome, Stevie."

"Thank you, sir," Steve said, turning and shaking Rodriguez's hand. Then he turned and hurled himself at Tony, surprising him and knocking the air out of him as he collided with him and flung his arms around his waist. "Thank you, Mr. Tony," he said happily, hugging him tightly. He looked up at him, joy sparkling in his bright blue eyes. "This was the best day ever."

Tony smiled warmly and hugged him back. "You're welcome, Steve. I'm glad you had fun."

They chatted a little longer with the team before heading back to the car. Steve was straggling behind as they walked, not complaining when Barnes scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way to the car. He held his signed baseball in his hands the whole way home, staring down at it happily. Back at the Tower, no one but Thor and Barnes were particularly hungry after the day of ballpark snacking, so they put together a light dinner. Even though it was barely six o'clock, Steve was clearly exhausted after a long day of baseball, sun, and excitement, and he slumped over almost as soon as he sat down at the table and fell asleep face-down in his sandwich.

"Alright, that's just adorable," Clint said, and Natasha said something in Russian that Tony suspected sounded a lot sappier when you translated it into English.

Barnes chuckled softly and carefully picked up their sleeping Captain, brushing breadcrumbs off his face and carrying him back to his room to put him to bed.

Tony was feeling pretty tired and content himself, and had every intention of getting an early night tonight, but after dinner some lab results he'd been waiting on came through, and he got caught up in a fit of engineering and didn't make it to bed until almost four in the morning. He slept until well after lunch, and when he got up and headed toward the kitchen, something on the table outside his door caught his eye.

It was a white piece of paper, folded in half to stand up like a card. The words 'Mr. Tony' were written on the front in impeccably neat green crayon. Tony opened it up to find more letters in the same neat writing.

'Dear Mr. Tony,' they said. 'Thank you so much for taking me and everybody to the ball game yesterday. Baseball is my very favorite game, and it was so exciting to see it at a real stadium. I had a great time and I will always remember how much fun I had and how nice it was of you to do that for me. Thanks again, and I hope whatever invention you were working on last night works just how you want it to. Love, Steve.'

All around the edges of the paper were little red crayon marks that mimicked the stitching on a baseball. Underneath the writing was a drawing in colored pencil of two figures standing on a baseball field. One was tall with spiky brown hair and a beard and a nice suit, holding onto the hand of the smaller figure with blond hair. Both were smiling happily.

Something was caught in Tony's throat that was hard to pretend was anything but warm fuzzy feelings, and he let them sit there for a minute before swallowing it down and setting the card on the desk in his room with a smile and going to find something to eat.

* * *

_Tony has long since given in to feeling the parental feelings about the little fella. And, really, it's not the worst thing._

_Up next, Steve discovers the joys of running loops of the Tower hallways, much to Bucky and Sam's confused amusement, and it's not Tony's fault at ALL. Nope.  
_


	15. All Wound Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Tony is getting a lot better at this dad thing, but Bucky and Sam decide that he may not be quite ready to supervise Steve without any supervision of his own.

* * *

Sam and Bucky stepped out of the elevator into the main living quarters—they'd been off on a mission, and Sam had to admit, he was a little surprised Steve wasn't waiting at the bottom of the stairs for them like he usually was, although they _were_ back a little early. It had been a quick one—it had to be, since Bucky refused to do overnight missions anymore with Little Steve waiting back at the Tower.

"Little quiet for the middle of the afternoon," Sam commented, looking around the empty living room.

"Yeah," Bucky agreed. "Maybe—"

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a yell coming from down the hallway, getting louder as it got closer. It wasn't a yell of pain or anger or anything bad, it was just…noise. "Is that Steve?" Sam asked. It was high-pitched enough, it could hardly be anyone _but_ their resident nine-year-old, but Sam was having trouble recalling having ever heard the little guy yell.

"Sounds like it," Bucky said, sounding like he was reminding himself not to worry just yet. They peered into the hallway the yelling was coming from, and a tiny streak of denim and plaid shot by. Steve was halfway across the living room before he spotted them.

"Bucky!" he declared happily, spinning around and running back at them. "You're back!" He collided with Bucky's midsection with an audible _whump_.

"Yeah," Bucky said, wheezing just a little bit.

"And Sam!" Steve exclaimed, turning and giving Sam an equally enthusiastic hug. "Hi, Sam!"

"Hey, man," Sam said, patting his head.

"What are you doing?" Bucky asked, nodding back at the hallway Steve had come dashing in from.

"I'm runnin'!" Steve said, bouncing on his toes. "You ever just, just feel like you gotta run?" He was talking with his hands, which Sam had only seen him do a couple of times, but they were waving so fast Sam wondered just how much control he had over the motion.

"I guess," Bucky allowed. "Sometimes." He shot a curious look at Sam. They all knew kids needed sunshine and exercise and space to play, and they were pretty good about making sure Steve got it. Seeing as they'd just spent yesterday afternoon in the park, though, it seemed a little early for the little guy to be getting stir-crazy.

"So, there's nothing wrong?" Bucky clarified.

"Nuh uh," Steve replied, still bouncing.

"What was with the yelling?" Sam wondered.

"I was yellin'?" Steve asked, but before Sam could do more than nod, he shrugged. "I guess I'm just excited."

"Alright," Sam said, still a little puzzled. "Well, keep running, I guess."

Steve grinned and jumped and was off like a shot down the opposite hallway. "Welcome back!" he yelled before disappearing around the corner.

Sam looked at Bucky. "Well, that was different."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed, staring curiously down the hall Steve had run into. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., is this…is there anything I need to know?"

"Captain Rogers' heart rate is a bit elevated, but not to a dangerous level," the A.I. replied. "I believe he is simply particularly energetic today."

"Alright," Bucky said, still sounding confused.

"Kids do that sometimes," Sam said, remembering similar occasions with his nephews. "Maybe he had a lot of sugar at lunch." He did have to laugh as he left for his room to get a shower and heard Steve dash through the living room again, having resumed his yelling.

When Sam got out of the shower, Steve was in the living room again, jumping up and down on one of the couches. "Hey, man," Sam greeted.

"Hi!" Steve replied.

"I don't know if Tony wants you jumping on his couch," Sam pointed out. Not that Steve was heavy enough to cause any damage, but it was a couch Tony had bought, so it was expensive. He was also a little surprised, figuring it was not good 1920's manners to jump on the furniture.

"Mr. Tony said," Steve began, bending his knees for a big jump and spinning in a circle while he was airborne. "That I could do whatever I wanted as long as I was outta the lab." Another large jump and a spin. "I figure that makes jumpin' on the couch okay. Look how high I can go!"

"He kicked you out of his lab?" Sam asked.

"Uh huh," Steve said, panting a little bit as he kept jumping.

"What'd you do?" Sam wondered, raising a curious eyebrow.

"Nothin'," Steve replied. He clambered up on the arm of the couch and flung himself down onto the cushions, bouncing back up with a giggle. "But he didn't want me runnin' around in there. Nope, nope, nope." He jumped again, bounced off the cushions, and took off down the hall.

"Okay," Sam said, pointing to where Steve disappeared as Bucky walked back into the room. "That kid is hyper as hell."

"Did I hear him say Stark kicked him out of his lab?" Bucky clarified.

"Yeah."

"NYYYYEEEOOOWWW!" Steve yelled, running back through the room with his arms out like wings and making airplane noises. He ran in a circle around Bucky, and then disappeared into the hall again.

Sam snorted—this was weird, but it was kind of hilarious.

"Well, I can see why he wouldn't want that in the lab," Bucky said, smiling just a little himself.

"Oh, hey, guys," Tony said, coming in from the elevator. "Thought you weren't going to be back until dinner."

"Things actually went without any hitches for once," Sam said. Which was nice for a change.

"Cool. So, um, I should probably warn you—"

Steve dashed by again, still making airplane noises. This time, he had a bath towel tied around his neck like a cape.

Tony sighed. "I guess he hasn't calmed down yet, huh?"

"No," Bucky said. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Did you do this?"

"Um…"

"Stark," Bucky growled.

Steve ran by again, still wearing his towel cape and singing, if Sam wasn't mistaken, 'Ride of the Valkyries'.

Tony looked like he wanted to laugh, though he sobered quickly under what was fast turning into a Winter Soldier glare. "I might be partially responsible for this," he admitted. "A little."

" _Stark_."

"Alright, in my defense, I haven't actually slept in thirty-seven hours."

"I don't know if that's a good defense," Sam pointed out.

"It's relevant," Tony replied, waving a hand dismissively. "I was in the zone on my new project, right, and I didn't want to lose my groove, so I just didn't go to bed last night. Anyway, little guy comes down like he does and we're chatting, and like I said, I'm tired, so I wasn't quite thinking straight, and I…might have let him have some coffee."

Steve ran back into the room, jumping up and running across the couch, then leaping over to the next one, towel cape flapping behind him. He made a circle of the furniture, jumped up into the air with a spin and a flourish, yelled, "Ka-pow!" when he landed, and ran off again.

Sam totally failed at hiding his amused snort, though he did try for Bucky's sake, who looked torn between laughing and exploding at Tony.

"You gave him coffee?" Bucky demanded.

"Yeah," Tony said. "He's been like this for almost an hour. Spangles is on a _major_ caffeine high."

"An hour?" Sam clarified. "How much coffee did you give him?"

"Well, it was kind of a big cup, and he drank the whole thing—"

Bucky sighed and threw his head back and Tony raised his hands defensively.

"I'm sorry, alright? I wasn't paying attention." Tony sighed. "As long as we're admitting things, I should probably go ahead and get out of the way that it was espresso."

Bucky sighed and pressed a hand to his temple. "Stark, I swear—"

"I know, I know," Tony said. "But look, as soon as he started bouncing off the walls, I realized what happened, and I sat him down—practically had to hold him down—and had F.R.I.D.A.Y. do a comprehensive scan."

"Captain Rogers' vitals are all within acceptable levels," the A.I. chimed in.

"Acceptable in a textbook, or acceptable for Steve specifically?" Bucky clarified. Sam was wondering the same thing.

"Acceptable for his current physiology specifically," F.R.I.D.A.Y. responded, just a tad crisply.

"I shouldn't have done it, but it's not going to hurt him," Tony said. "I checked. And rechecked. And checked again," he said seriously, and Bucky nodded. Occasional lack of sound judgement aside, Sam knew Tony took Little Steve's wellbeing just as seriously as the rest of them did—and he'd only gotten even more protective after the mango thing. If Tony said Steve would be fine, then they could trust that.

"So, what, we just wait for him to come down?" Sam asked.

"Pretty much," Tony said.

Steve dashed back into the room, climbed up the nearest couch, and launched himself through the air onto Sam's back. "Hiya, Sam!" he said, flinging his arms around Sam's neck to catch himself and making him stagger forward under the impact.

"Hey, dude," Sam coughed, reaching up to pat his arm. "How's it going?"

"Awesome!" Steve enthused. "Hey, did you know?" he started, bouncing himself up and down as he spoke. "Did you know there's an animal called a narwhal? It's a whale with a horn! Like a sea unicorn!"

"That's cool," Sam said, trying to maintain his balance as Steve continued to bounce.

"And!" Steve continued. "And! And! And! There's a squid that lives down deep in the ocean! So deep, there's no lights or nothin'! And it's even bigger than this whole living room!" He stopped bouncing long enough to lean forward to see if Sam was as impressed with this information as he was.

"Giant squid, right?" Sam asked.

"Yeah!" Steve confirmed, resuming his bouncing. Bucky laughed and tried to hide it behind his hand when Sam glared at him. "I was readin' about 'em this mornin'! You know, my fish book from the library?"

"Uh huh."

"Can you imagine a squid so big as that?" Steve asked. "It could just…" He made a weird sucking noise that Sam assumed had something to do with tentacles and suckers, swinging his legs up and locking them around Sam's waist in demonstration. "…and grab you right up! And its one eyeball is bigger than my whole head!"

"Yeah, that's pretty cool, but you know what? You need to stop bouncing, or you're gonna knock me over," Sam said.

"Okay," Steve said, not sounding the least bit put out about being told to stop. He let go of Sam and dropped down to the floor, landing with a roll and getting a little tangled in his towel cape before he popped back up. "Bye!" he exclaimed, and he ran off into the hall again.

"Wow," Bucky said.

"Ow," Sam complained, rubbing his neck. The kid weighed, like, fifteen pounds, but Sam was pretty sure his enthusiastic bouncing was going to leave a bruise or two. "How long is this supposed to last?" he asked Tony.

Tony shrugged.

"That's helpful, thanks."

The coffee high ended up going for another half hour or so. Sam and Bucky settled into a couple of the chairs in the living room and just watched as Steve made his laps around the Tower. He would occasionally deviate from his running to jump on the furniture, spin in circles until he fell over, or try to coerce one of them to come run with him, though he never stood still enough to get an actual answer. He would yell or sing or make his airplane noises, and Sam could have sworn at one point he was making elephant sounds.

"So, from here on out, no more coffee for Steve, ever," Bucky declared.

"Did pre-serum adult Steve drink coffee?" Sam wondered. He knew caffeine didn't do anything for Big Steve anymore, but he wondered how much of an effect it would have without the serum.

"Not really," Bucky said. "He said it was too bitter, but it did hype him up pretty good. Nothing like this, though," he added with a chuckle as Steve shot by again. He was going awfully fast, but Sam didn't think he was wearing a shirt anymore. "Mostly just made his hands shaky if he had more than a cup. Then he met Peggy, and he gave up coffee altogether and became kind of a tea snob."

Sam laughed. He would definitely categorize Big Steve as a tea snob. The little guy didn't seem to be too picky about what he drank. Sam did wonder how much sugar Tony (who liked his coffee _sweet_ ) had put in it, and if that was affecting Steve's hyperactivity too.

"Is something the matter with our young Captain?" Thor asked, walking in from the direction of the elevator and sounding worried. "He has just run past me shrieking and waving his arms in the air, but he was gone before I could ask what the trouble was."

"No, he's fine," Bucky said. "Stark gave him coffee."

"The delicious morning brew?" Thor asked. "I don't understand why it should affect him thus."

Bucky went on to explain how caffeine worked in the human body and why it was making Steve so energetic. It took a little while for Thor to understand—caffeine didn't seem to affect him either—but once he did, he was laughing merrily.

"Speaking of our tiny little hyperactive friend," Sam said, noticing how quiet it was. "It's been, like, ten minutes since he ran by."

"Awful quiet too," Bucky said. There was no yelling or pounding of little feet. He looked at Sam. "Maybe it finally wore off."

Curiously, the three of them got up and split off into the different branches of the hallway to see if they could find him. Sam found him curled up on the rug outside of Natasha's room. His head was pillowed on the towel he'd been using as a cape, and he was missing his shirt, one shoe and one sock (although, not from the same foot). He was fast asleep.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. would have alerted them if Steve's heart had gotten overworked or something and he'd passed out, so this really was just sleep, accompanied by exhausted snoring and just a little bit of drooling. Sam crouched down in front of him, smiling. "Finally ran out of steam, huh, little buddy?" he asked softly. He couldn't resist pulling out his phone and snapping a few pictures—not for blackmail or anything, it was just that cute—then he picked him up carefully and headed back to the living room. Steve made a contented little snuffling sound and nuzzled his head into Sam's chest, and Sam smiled fondly and hugged him a little tighter.

"Found him," Sam said quietly, coming back into the living room. "He was asleep on the floor outside Natasha's room."

Bucky laughed. "Crashed hard, huh?"

"Looked like it. Though he did take time to make a pillow out of his cape."

"You're ridiculous, Stevie," Bucky said, reaching up a hand to ruffle Steve's hair softly. He nodded down to one end of the couch. "Why don't you put him over there? I'll go see if I can find his shirt, and we'll let him sleep it off."

* * *

_So, coffee and the little guy turn out to be a very interesting combination._

_Up next, there's a fancy party, and Steve gets to wear a suit._


	16. A Night On The Town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a party! Steve is very excited to get to dress up all fancy and wear a suit, but he may need some help navigating some of the finer points of a fancy French restaurant.

* * *

"Hey, so, do we need a babysitter or something for tonight for Steve?" Clint asked as he laid a card down on the table. "Because if we don't have one lined up yet, I'll totally volunteer."

"What?" Bucky asked, looking up from his cards.

"I'm just saying, any excuse to get out of an event where I have to wear a tie, I'll take it," Clint said.

"Why are you wearing a tie?" Bucky asked.

"No, I'm saying I don't want to," Clint repeated.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Bucky replied.

"He's talking about Pepper's birthday dinner," Natasha said around a mouthful of granola bar as she walked into the living room. "Tony just texted out the location." She held up her phone. "It's super swanky."

Bucky had totally forgotten about that. His first reaction was to fight Clint for the babysitting role—he had nothing against Pepper, but he had lots of things against formal evening wear.

"What's swanky mean?" Steve asked, walking into the room not far behind Natasha. "And is it time for lunch yet?"

"Um, yeah, it's about lunch time," Bucky said. "And swanky means, like, fancy."

"Okay," Steve said. "What swanky thing are you talking about?"

"Tonight is Miss Pepper's birthday," Natasha said. "You know, Tony's girlfriend?" Steve had not actually interacted much with Pepper since turning small—she'd been traveling a lot for Stark Industries stuff. He was aware of her, though, so he nodded. "There's a party for her tonight."

"A fancy party?" Steve asked. "Am I allowed to come? I've never been to a fancy party before."

"Um," Bucky said, looking over at Clint. Stark generally didn't throw the kinds of parties kids were invited to, though it might be alright if it was at a restaurant. Although, Bucky didn't know how interesting Steve would find the whole thing.

"I don't see why not," Natasha said before Bucky or Clint could reply. She shot Clint a smirk. "Everybody else is going. Wearing fancy suits and ties and everything."

"Dang it," Clint muttered.

Steve frowned. "I don't have a suit and a tie."

"We'll get you one after lunch," Natasha said confidently. "You and me and Wanda will go find you something nice to wear. What do you say?"

"Okay," Steve said.

"Bucky and Clint aren't invited to the shopping trip," Natasha went on. "They have terrible fashion sense."

Steve giggled and Clint protested loudly. "Hey!"

"She's got a point," Bucky said. Given his way, he favored well-worn jeans and sweaters or t-shirts, and he had exactly one 'fancy' outfit that Natasha and Sam had helped him put together, which he would be wearing tonight. He still knew what looked good and what didn't—it was more that he didn't care—but he suspected Clint might not even know. "I mean…" he elaborated, nodding at Clint's outfit.

Clint sputtered indignantly. "I'm just hanging around the Tower! Why do I have to match to lounge?"

"You don't," Natasha said. "But the fact that you even own a lime-green paisley polo shirt puts your judgement on highly questionable ground."

"Shouldn't we take him and find him some nice clothes too, then?" Steve wondered, and his tone was so genuine that Bucky did his best to hide his snort of laughter in a cough while Clint glared at him.

"He has some that I bought him and will make him put on before we leave," Natasha assured him. "Let's go have lunch."

After lunch, Natasha and Wanda took Steve out with the promise of seeing him properly attired for the evening and maybe getting ice cream. Bucky spent the afternoon working on a report, and he had to smile when the shopping group came back and Steve brought him a cookie—ice cream would have melted before they got home, but he had wanted to get Bucky something.

"Thanks, Steve," Bucky said. "How did the shopping go?"

"It was fun," Steve said. "We found me some real fancy clothes, and a real tie, and Miss Natasha even got me some shiny shoes! Miss Wanda said I looked on fleek. That's a good thing," he explained.

Bucky smiled. "Well, good. I'll bet you look real sharp."

Steve grinned. "Yep," he said, very pleased. He lifted the lid of the shoebox he was carrying. "See my shiny shoes?"

"Wow," Bucky said. Those were the sharpest pair of size twelve oxfords Bucky had ever seen. "Is there some other kind of tie besides a 'real' tie?" Bucky wondered after Steve went to his room to put his shoes away.

"Clip-on," Natasha explained. "We tried that, but he wanted a 'grownup' tie. You're probably going to have to help him tie it."

Bucky chuckled. "I can do that. I've taught him once already before." Although, last time he'd taught him how to tie a tie, Steve had accidentally tightened it too much and almost choked himself. Maybe Bucky would just do it for him.

It was still a couple of hours until the dinner, so Bucky joined Steve in constructing a very elaborate marble run tower that was nearly as tall as Steve was. Then Steve went and got a bath, wanting to be clean for the party. He came out wrapped up in his little bathrobe and told Bucky he'd better shave and make his hair look nice before he marched off, for some reason, to Natasha's room.

He came back with his hair dried and swept back with a little bit of gel in it, then proceeded to get dressed while Bucky finished shaving. "Wow," Bucky said, when Steve put his jacket on and held his arms out for inspection. "They really went all out with you, huh?" He was wearing a sharp black suit with a crisp white dress shirt, and the jacket had a rich blue lining that was visible when Steve raised his arms.

"I think Miss Natasha was having fun dressing me up," Steve said. "I tried on lots of different stuff. Miss Wanda picked this jacket, though. See how it's blue inside?"

"Yeah," Bucky nodded. He smiled. "I feel a little underdressed now."

"You look very nice, Bucky," Steve said. "Real swanky."

Bucky chuckled. "Thanks, buddy."

"You smell good too. Can I use some of your smell-good stuff?"

It was actually Sam's cologne that Bucky was borrowing, but he gave Steve a little spritz of it.

"Thanks. Can you help me tie my tie?"

Until this moment, Bucky had had no idea that they even _made_ kid-sized ties, but apparently, someone did. Steve's was in a shade of blue that matched the inside of his jacket. Bucky had needed to practice a couple of times on his own tie to remember how, but now he tied a quick, very small full-Windsor knot appropriate to the occasion.

"Thanks, Bucky!" Steve said, then hurried from the room.

"Where you going?" Bucky wondered.

"I gotta go get something Miss Wanda was keeping for me before Miss Pepper gets here."

They were gathering in the living room, everyone dressed in their finest—even Clint, who was looking pretty sharp. Bucky was glad that the only comment on his appearance was Natasha mentioning that he looked good and then moving on. He didn't so much mind the dress clothes—except for the tie—but he _did_ hate it when people made a big deal about him wearing them.

Stark and Pepper arrived, and everyone greeted her with happy birthday wishes.

"Happy birthday, Miss Pepper," Steve said.

"Why, thank you, Steve," she said with a warm smile. "Don't you look handsome tonight."

Steve blushed a little and grinned. "Thanks. You look real pretty too." He turned around and picked up something off of the coffee table behind him. "I got you something for your birthday." In his hands was a small glass vase with an assortment of flowers. Bucky was a little surprised to be able to identify them—an unexpected set of memories had just leapt into his mind, and he remembered he used to be a regular at the florist getting flowers for girls back before the War. Steve's flowers were mostly blue—columbines and forget-me-nots and bellflowers—with some baby's breath and zinnia mixed in for variety.

"Oh, Steve, they're lovely," Pepper said, crouching down a little to take them.

"Miss Natasha said blue was your favorite color," Steve said, nodding at the shimmery blue dress Pepper was wearing a little uncertainly, like he was hoping he'd gotten it right.

"She was right," Pepper said, smiling brightly. "I do like blue, and these flowers are just gorgeous." She bent down and kissed Steve lightly on the cheek. "Thank you," she said. "That was very thoughtful of you. Such a perfect gentleman."

She arched an amused eyebrow at Stark as they headed for the elevator. "What?" he protested. "I'm a gentleman!"

"You didn't get me flowers," she pointed out.

"Okay, maybe not. But I _do_ have something even better."

Thankfully, they had walked out of earshot before Stark could elaborate. "That was real nice of you, Stevie," he said, resting a hand on his shoulder and steering him toward the elevator.

"I'm glad she liked it," Steve said. "I don't know her well enough to know what she would like, but I thought it might be rude to go to her birthday and not get her something."

"Well, that was very polite of you," Bucky said. "And it looked like she liked it to me," he assured him.

Pepper passed her flowers off to an assistant in the lobby to put them in her room, and they all climbed into the limousine waiting outside. "This is such a big car," Steve marveled.

"Indeed," Thor agreed. "One could transport an army in this."

"It doesn't get the mileage to make it worthwhile for combat," Stark said. "But it does come with drinks." He opened up a little fridge and passed glasses of champagne around. Bucky eyed the drinks a little critically, earning him a mock-wounded don't-you-trust-me pout from Stark who proceeded to hand Steve a glass and mouth to Barnes, "his is sparkling grape juice."

Bucky instantly felt out of place as they arrived at the restaurant—'swanky' was really underselling things. The place was big, with lots of marble and velvet. The lights were low in a classy sort of way; soft, gentle music being played by a live string quartet filled the air; and he was pretty sure the waiters were wearing clothes way more expensive than his. Natasha saved him in that way she had a tendency to, by distracting him without calling attention to his problem at all.

"Are you going to be a gentleman, or do I have to escort myself inside?" she asked with a teasing smile, and Bucky smiled back and took her arm.

He looked around to make sure Steve was following, then chuckled and nodded to Natasha to look behind them. Steve was escorting Wanda, though he was too short to take her arm, so he was holding her hand and carrying her purse. When they reached their table, he pulled out her chair for her and handed her purse back with a little bow.

"You twenties boys really are gentlemen, aren't you?" Natasha said with a smile, taking the seat Bucky pulled out for her.

"We don't clean up too bad," Bucky said.

They took their seats, and their waiter passed around a wine list. Steve sat patiently, hands folded in his lap, but Bucky caught him eyeing the basket of bread in the middle of the table. "Are we allowed to eat that bread?" he finally whispered to Bucky.

Bucky smiled. "That's why it's there."

Steve contemplated the basket a few seconds longer. "Can you reach it? I think it would be rude for me to reach so far across the table."

Bucky obliged and handed him the bread basket, and he took one, offered some to Bucky, then passed it to Thor, who was on his other side. Thor was greatly amused by the little spheres of butter that were passed along with it. Steve eyed the round butter skeptically, and Bucky mostly succeeded in not laughing when Steve took one and looked around furtively, like he was pretty sure he wasn't following proper protocol, then picked it up and licked it quickly to make sure it was really butter.

The conversation around the table was quiet, and Bucky took the moment to look around. This was the sort of place he would never have been able to afford back during the War—he couldn't really afford it now, either, but Stark was generously footing the bill—but it was the sort of place he'd always dreamed about being able to take a girl to.

The waiter returned with drinks and menus, and he made a low remark to Stark that Bucky just caught that sounded like an apology for not having a children's menu, but also might have been a slight reproach for bringing a kid in the first place. This was one of the times Bucky really appreciated Stark's tendency to do things his own way without any regard for what people thought—his words politely said just to bring Steve a regular menu (for the sake of not causing a scene on Pepper's night, no doubt), but his eyebrow clearly said that he knew what the waiter was implying and offered a few suggestions for where he could shove it.

Steve disappeared behind the tall menu and stayed there for a little while. When Bucky peeked around the edge, he saw him chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

"You okay, Stevie?" he asked.

Steve looked up, looking embarrassed. "I don't know what most of these words mean," he said quietly.

"A lot of it's French," Bucky told him. "Fancy people like to use French words to make things sound even fancier." He wasn't actually sure what everything on the menu was either, but he could identify more of it than Steve could.

"Oh," Steve replied. He frowned at his menu a little longer. "What's…escargot?" he asked, pronouncing the 't' at the end.

"Snails," Bucky said.

Steve shot him a glare. "Bucky, I'm being serious."

"I know," he said. "It's seriously snails."

Steve looked at him a moment longer, then turned back to his menu suspiciously. "What about sashimi?"

"Raw beef."

"What about fo…foee grass?"

"Goose liver."

"Bucky, are you making these up?"

"I'm really not."

"Hmm." He studied the menu another minute. "What's a crustacean?"

"Like a lobster or a crab."

Steve sighed. "So they made jelly out of a lobster?"

Bucky chuckled at the look on his face.

"And they really eat sea urchins and octopuses too?"

"They do."

Steve's frown was only deepening as he looked over the menu.

"Tell you what?" Bucky said. "Why don't you get this one? It's ravioli with fancy cheese and sausage inside."

Steve perked up a little. "That sounds normal," he said.

They placed their orders—Stark ordered appetizers for the table—then returned to their quiet conversation.

"Mr. Thor, do you have fancy parties on Asgard?" Steve wondered, his voice just above a whisper, as if he was worried about drawing too much attention to himself.

"We do," Thor said, buttering another piece of bread. "There are dinners of state and the like where such formality is required. When I was a child, I found them very dull." He chuckled. "There was one dinner I recall that my brother, Loki, came to the feast with a box of frogs concealed inside his cloak. He released them during the main course, where they proceeded to hop along the table and across people's plates."

Steve was staring, open-mouthed. "Did he get in trouble?"

"Much," Thor replied, still chuckling. "But it was the most entertaining state dinner I have ever attended."

Steve laughed. "Bucky brought a mouse to school one time," he said. "It ran all over the classroom and scared the teacher."

"I didn't mean to let it out," Bucky protested. "And you're leaving out the part where I only had the mouse because you saved it from a cat and didn't want to leave it in the alley in case the cat came back."

Steve blushed, but he smiled and Thor chuckled.

The appetizers arrived then, along with an assortment of plates and silverware. "Work your way from the outside in," Natasha leaned in and whispered to Bucky, who was eyeing his multiple forks warily. He leaned in and repeated the same to Steve, who was clearly wondering why so much silverware was necessary.

"What are these little circle things?" Steve asked, picking up a small tart filled with white cream and little black spheres.

"Caviar," Sam replied, biting into his happily. "Fish eggs," he elaborated when Steve still looked confused. "I'll eat yours if you don't want it," he offered when Steve's nose wrinkled. Steve happily passed it over.

Steve was skeptical of the avocado-wrapped shredded lobster, but seemed to approve once he'd tasted it, and he greatly enjoyed the thin slices of crispy cheese that probably had a way fancier name than that. Bucky had never had caviar before, and it wasn't bad, but he didn't see what all the fuss was about. The lobster avocados were great, though.

"Bucky, he took my fork away," Steve said after the waiter cleared the course.

"Don't worry, you've got, like, three more," Bucky said. "Remember, work from the outside in."

"It must take a long time to wash the dishes when you use a different fork for everything," Steve mused.

Steve was getting a little fidgety as they waited for the main course, but his 1920's manners were kicking in and he continued to sit there quietly and not make a fuss. He did keep eyeing the bread basket and the butter spheres, and Bucky could tell he was tempted to pick up a couple of the strange butters and play with them, but he was restraining himself. Then the meal came, and he was delighted to receive another circle of the toasted cheese along with his ravioli, though it was stuck artistically into the top of the middle one.

"Wow," Steve said, eyeing his plate with its carefully placed raviolis and decorative drizzles of sauce. "This is really fancy." He tilted his head curiously as he studied Bucky's plate. "How are you supposed to eat that?"

"I'm not sure," Bucky admitted. His steak medallions were surrounded by stalks of roasted asparagus that had been propped into an interesting shape and tied across the top to stay in place with translucent slivers of beef.

"Hey, Steve, look at these," Wanda said, leaning around Thor to show him the delicate flowers her vegetables had been carved into.

"I think mine wins presentation," Sam said, pointing to his fish fillet that was laid across a flat black rock with little holes carved into the stone for the sauces, and large crystals of sea salt sprinkled across it.

Natasha groaned. "Clint ordered the octopus," she sighed. Steve's eyes darted across the table, and Bucky's followed. Atop Clint's plate, surrounded by assorted decorative vegetables and creatively cut bits of toast, was a curved tentacle, roasted and clearly cooked, but with all the suckers still attached.

"Ew," Steve said, staring in fascination.

Clint chuckled gleefully, and Natasha shot a glare at him. "If you don't eat that like a gentleman," she warned. "You will see just how fast I can kill you with a piece of shrimp toast."

"How do you eat octopus like a gentleman?" Steve wondered.

"Without slurping on it like spaghetti or sticking the suckers to his tongue," she explained.

"You want a piece, Steve?" Clint offered, cutting off a little bit of tentacle.

"No, thank you," Steve said quickly, though he couldn't stop staring at it.

Steve ate his ravioli, nibbling the crispy cheese piece on top and then cutting the pasta into very tiny, neat little bites. He seemed very aware of his new shirt and was eating even more carefully than normal. He watched everyone else at the table to make sure he was doing it right, setting his silverware to the side of the plate when he was done like Pepper had.

"Good job, Stevie," Bucky whispered after the waiter came and took his plate.

"Thanks," Steve replied. "There's a lot to make sure you're getting right."

The food cleared away, Stark stood up and took Pepper's hand, escorting her out to the dance floor. Thor followed them, offering Wanda his hand, and Natasha smacked Clint discreetly on the shoulder and led him after them. They all danced to a slow, graceful song. Steve was watching interestedly, and seemed surprised when the song ended and Wanda came back and asked him to dance with her.

"Really?"

"Of course," she said with a smile. "You can't get all dressed up like that and not go dancing."

Steve beamed and followed her out to the floor, straightening his tie. Natasha came back, shot Bucky a look and nodded when he shook his head, then headed back to the floor with Sam. Bucky watched them for a while. He remembered doing things like this, but didn't really feel the need to join in right now. He was happy just watching his friends and felt content. He was also enjoying watching Steve, who was still a terrible dancer, but made up for it by being so cute. He danced with Wanda, then Natasha, then Pepper swung away from Stark and danced with Steve for a little bit. After that, he seemed content to dance by himself over in one corner of the floor, twirling along to the music. Bucky definitely saw several high-society ladies watching him with sappy smiles.

They all returned to the table after a little while for dessert.

"Did you not want to dance, Bucky?" Steve asked, climbing back up into his seat.

"Nah," Bucky said. "Looked like you were having fun, though."

"Yeah. Miss Pepper showed me how to waltz."

The dessert names were just as foreign to Steve as the main dishes had been, but he insisted he wanted to order his own, and Bucky figured that was safe—dessert didn't tend to have raw fish or other unexpected things in it, though he did make sure to check with the waiter after Steve ordered to make sure what he picked didn't have any nuts or coconut in it.

Steve had picked something with the word 'chocolate' in it, and seemed pleased and impressed with what arrived. A little pastry that curved up like a bridge was generously coated in chocolate, and a line of candied cherries ran underneath the pastry bridge. Whipped cream and chocolate drizzles were strategically placed around the plate, and little shapes that had been made out of chocolate that had been drizzled and then hardened stuck up out of the pastry.

"I almost hate to break it with my fork 'cause it looks so pretty," Steve said.

"I would be happy to do that for you," Thor said, advancing menacingly with his fork.

Steve lifted his arms to create a protective barrier around his dessert. Eventually, he did break it up and declared it to be delicious. He offered a bite to Bucky, who in turn shared a piece of the globe of meringue and lemon tart he'd received.

With dessert cleared away, things slowed down. Coffee and wine came out, and people from other tables were coming over to talk to Stark and congratulate Pepper. The evening showed no signs of ending soon, but Bucky saw Steve stifling a yawn, and he slid out of his seat and around the table to where Pepper was sitting.

"Sorry to duck out early," he told her. "But it's getting close to someone's bedtime," he added, nodding across the table at Steve, who yawned again.

Pepper chuckled. "Of course."

Bucky beckoned Steve over, and after he told him they were leaving, he reached out and shook Pepper's hand. "Happy birthday again, Miss Pepper," he told her. "Thanks for inviting me. I had a swell time."

"You're very welcome, Steve," she said with a smile. "I'm glad you could come."

Steve smiled, hesitated a moment, then kissed the back of her hand before letting go. It was a move Bucky knew he'd seen recently in a movie, and based on Pepper's grin and Stark's mostly-restrained chuckle, now had been a good time to try it out.

"Such a gentleman," Pepper said again, smiling warmly. "I hope you have a good night, Steve."

"I hope you do too, Miss Pepper. Thank you."

Pepper caught Bucky's hand before he could move away with Steve. "I'm glad you could come too, Bucky," she said, squeezing his hand warmly, and Bucky could tell she really meant it and smiled back, feeling touched.

They told everyone goodnight, then made their way outside. While they were waiting for a taxi, Thor and Wanda showed up. "You're not staying for the rest of the evening?" Bucky wondered.

Thor shook his head. "The festivities were pleasant, but now, having done honor to the Lady Pepper, I feel I should like to go home and have a real meal."

Bucky chuckled. The food had been good, but the portions weren't exactly what would keep a super-soldier or a Norse god going. He'd been planning to get a snack back at the Tower too.

"Big parties aren't really my thing," Wanda added. "I thought with other people leaving, it would be a good chance for me to slip out without being rude."

"You can come in our taxi with us if you want," Steve said. "We've already got one coming."

"Thank you," she said with a smile.

The ride back to the Tower was quick. "So, what did you think of your first fancy party, Stevie?" Bucky asked as they got off the elevator.

"It was nice," Steve said. "The food tasted good. It was…" He hesitated a moment, as if he was about to say the wrong thing. "It was a little bit boring," he admitted.

"Yeah," Bucky agreed.

"But I had lots of fun dressing up," Steve added. "And dancing and stuff."

"We could keep dancing if you would like," Wanda said with a smile. "Perhaps some livelier music. If you're allowed to stay up a little longer."

"Can I Bucky?" Steve asked eagerly. "Please?"

Bucky chuckled. "Sure." It was a little after Steve's usual bedtime, but that been more of an excuse to extract both Steve and himself from the restaurant than any sort of urgent need. "Go change into your pajamas first, though."

"Okay!" Steve rushed off to change.

"Are we continuing the festivities?" Thor asked, coming in with a box of Pop Tarts in his hand. "I have ordered some pizza."

"Pizza and a dance party," Wanda said. "Wonderful. Are you coming too, Bucky?"

"At least for the pizza." He wasn't sure about the dancing. He went to change into something more comfortable, chuckling at Steve's tiny little suit hanging neatly in the closet, his shiny shoes lined up underneath it.

When he came out of his room, he heard music coming down the hall from the direction of Wanda's room. It was definitely livelier than a four-string quartet. Britney Spears, if his limited pop culture knowledge served him correctly.

"My loneliness is killing me," Wanda was singing. "I must confess, I still believe…"

"Still believe!" Steve echoed awfully highly.

"When I'm not with you I lose my mind," Thor sang loudly. "Give me a siiiiign!"

Bucky stuck his head around the door to see the three of them each holding a hairbrush like a microphone. Thor was holding a Pop Tart in one hand and the brush in the other and wearing a mirrored pair of sunglasses. Wanda was wearing a pink feather boa, and Steve was standing on Wanda's bed wearing his dinosaur pajamas and a red cowboy hat.

"Hit me, baby, one more time!" they all sang in unison.

Bucky laughed. "Now _this_ is a party."

* * *

_So, Little Steve got to experience the fancy life AND have a dance party. Pretty good night for the little fella._

_Up next, story time with Nat._


	17. Story Time With Nat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bedtime stories with Natasha! This chapter goes out to ym4yum1, who heard I was doing this chapter and drew a lovely little illustration of it over on Tumblr.

* * *

"Have you heard anything about them yet?"

Natasha looked up from her report to see Steve standing in the door of the kitchen, one of Bucky's hoodies wrapped up around his dinosaur pajamas and clutching his teddy bear to his chest. Bucky, Sam and Wanda had left for a mission that morning. The mission itself had gone well, but they were currently stuck in Philly because the jet broke down. Steve had been getting increasingly worried the longer they were gone, even though Natasha kept assuring him that none of them were hurt. He'd been like her shadow most of the day—he always got kind of clingy when Bucky was gone.

"Tony called while you were taking a bath," she said. Tony had flown out in one of his Iron Man suits to see what he could do about the jet. "He'd just landed, but he didn't think it would take too long to fix." She smiled reassuringly. "They should be back in a couple hours."

Steve nodded, chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully and hugging his bear a little tighter.

"They really are okay," she assured him, though she knew words could only do so much. What he needed was something to distract him. "You want to play a game or something? Or we could watch a movie."

"No, thank you," Steve said politely.

"Well, we have to do something," she cajoled with a smile. "I can't let you just mope around all worried until they get back."

He gave her an embarrassed little smile at that.

"What would you like to do?" she asked.

Steve considered for a moment, then looked up at her hopefully. "Could you tell me a story?"

Natasha blinked in surprise at the request. "A story?" She was tempted to go and see if she could find Thor—she knew Steve liked his stories, and she didn't really know any. They didn't exactly go in for fairy tales and bedtime stories in the Red Room. "Um, sure," she found herself saying. She didn't have any ideas, but he just looked so hopeful and kind of sad that she couldn't say no.

"Tell you what, before we start, though, you want me to make some hot chocolate?" she asked. That got a smile out of him, and he nodded eagerly. Okay, that was good. Gave her a little time to think.

She pondered to herself as he waited patiently by the counter while she got down mugs and boiled water. Stories for kids, stories for kids… It wasn't strictly true that she didn't know _any_ —she spent enough time with Clint and his family that she knew all the basics: Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk… Those were fairly standard though, and not new. Odds were, Steve had heard them, and it wasn't as though they were overly interesting. If she was going to distract him enough to stop worrying, she was going to need something more engaging.

She was still thinking about it as she filled two cups and loaded them with marshmallows. She handed Steve his, and he carried it carefully to the couch, pulling the coffee table over close enough so that he could reach it and setting the cup down on a coaster. He positioned his bear in his lap and looked up at her expectantly.

Her mind had kept blanking spectacularly, until she remembered a book she'd been reading with Lila last time she'd been out at the Barton farm. Maybe it was cheating a little bit, since someone else had made the story up, but it was a good one. And Steve hadn't asked for an original Natasha Romanoff story. That would have had to end up being one from her life, and none of those were really appropriate bedtime fare.

"Okay," she began. "Once upon a time, there was a princess."

Steve raised an eyebrow skeptically. "A princess?"

"Yes, a princess," Natasha said. She raised an eyebrow right back at him. "You have a problem with princess stories?"

He considered for a moment. "No," he said. "But you don't really seem like a princess-y kind of lady."

She chuckled. "Well, you got me there. But this is still a good story."

"Alright," he said, still sounding a tad skeptical.

"So, this princess," she began again. "She wasn't very good at being a princess. In princess school, they were supposed to learn things like fancy embroidery, how to curtsy, how to bat their eyes at a prince to make him feel important when he talked, and how loud they were allowed to scream if they got kidnapped by a giant."

Steve huffed a soft laugh at the last one.

"And this princess didn't like any of that," Natasha said. "She wanted to learn how to do things like cook yummy food, or do magic, or sword fight. So she made the castle cooks and magicians and soldiers teach her how to do all that stuff, and she argued with the princes instead of batting her eyes, because she thought they were silly."

Steve giggled. "She sounds like you."

"Which makes her an awesome princess, I feel," Natasha said with a smile.

Steve nodded and smiled in agreement.

"So, the king and the queen, they kept asking her why she couldn't just be a normal princess like all her sisters, and they tried to make her stop learning how to do the stuff she wasn't supposed to do. But she kept doing it, so they decided to find her a prince to marry her, and thought maybe she would settle down."

"Did they ask her if she wanted to marry him?" Steve asked.

"They did not."

Steve frowned. "Well, that's not very nice. What if she didn't love him?"

"Exactly. So, the princess thought to herself, 'I've had enough of this,' and she ran away. She walked for a while, and when she got tired, she found a little hut to go inside and rest. But! The hut was magic, and when she stepped inside, she was inside a cave instead of a house."

Steve was watching her with wide eyes. "Was there a monster in the cave?" he asked quietly.

Natasha smiled. "There were dragons in the cave. Five of them."

"Uh oh."

"They wanted to know what she was doing there, so she told them she was a princess who had run away so she didn't have to marry the prince. Some of them thought that was silly, and one of them said they should just eat her. Before any more of them could decide they wanted to eat her, she offered to work for one of them. Because she remembered from her princess school that not just giants liked to kidnap princesses, but dragons did too. And she thought working for a dragon would be better than getting eaten by one."

"That's smart," Steve said.

"Well, the dragons thought that was weird, because princesses didn't usually volunteer, but then she said she knew how to cook, and one dragon decided she liked that, so she would take her."

"So, it was good that she learned some other stuff besides princess screaming," Steve said.

"Right?" Natasha agreed. "That's a good life lesson, right there. Having lots of skills is always going to be helpful. Remember that."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said with an emphatic nod, the motion making his bear jostle in agreement. "What sorts of things do dragons like to eat?" he wondered. "If I got caught by a dragon, I could make them spaghetti, or pancakes, or guacamole. Would that be enough to keep me from getting eaten?"

Natasha laughed. "Well, you _do_ make pretty good pancakes."

Steve smiled.

"So, let's see, where was I? Oh, right! So, she goes to work for the dragon," she continued. "And she learned pretty quick that it was an interesting job. She got to explore the caves, and the dragon had a really big library, and there was a whole treasure hoard for her to sort through."

"Wow! Like gold and jewels and stuff?"

"Yep. Dragons like to collect shiny things. So there was a lot to keep her busy, and she got to learn about how dragons worked, and her and the dragon she worked for became good friends."

"That's nice."

"Then one day, the princess went out to get some stuff. While she was outside the cave, she met a wizard," Natasha said. "She got suspicious of the wizard almost right away—he was really nosy, asking all kinds of questions about who she was and what she was doing. And then, he got _really_ interested when he found out she lived with the dragons."

"Was he a bad wizard? Did the dragons have something he wanted?" Steve guessed.

Natasha grinned, impressed. "Yes. But you're getting ahead of the story."

"Oh. Sorry," he said, though he was smiling as he ducked his head down against his bear.

"So, she talked with the wizard a little, and figured he was up to something, but she told him he could come visit her in the dragon's cave sometime. She thought maybe the dragon would know more about him, and maybe she could figure out what he wanted. She went home and told the dragon about it, and the dragon said that was a good idea, but that she should make sure not to let him in the treasure room when he came."

"If the wizard was cunning, he would appear when the dragon was away," boomed a voice from the other end of the couch, making them both jump. Thor was crouched down at the far end of the couch, his arms folded across the armrest and listening interestedly.

"How long have you been sitting there?" Natasha wondered. Very few people could sneak up on her, and Thor had never been one of them.

"Since the princess arrived in the cave," he said. "Do go on; it is an interesting tale."

"Um, okay," she said, feeling a little self-conscious in front of the enlarged audience.

"Mr. Thor, do you want to sit on the couch?" Steve offered, scooting closer to Natasha to make room.

"It would indeed be more comfortable," Thor agreed. He got up and moved to the couch. "My apologies for interrupting."

Steve picked up his cup of cocoa and clutched it in both hands in front of his bear, turning back to Natasha and looking up at her eagerly.

"Okay, uh, well, Thor was right. The wizard did come back on a day the dragon was gone," Natasha said.

"Good guess," Steve whispered to Thor.

"And, he brought another wizard with him," Natasha added. "They wanted to see around the cave, and they were asking the princess all kinds of questions and talking down to her, and the princess could tell they thought she was just a silly girl."

"I am certain she dispelled them of that notion swiftly," Thor said.

"No, no," Natasha said. "She went along with it. She batted her eyes and giggled and blushed and said things like, 'Oh, gee, I don't know,'" she said, drawing out the last statement in a ridiculously high-pitched valley girl voice. She bit her lip to keep from laughing at the identical looks of confusion on Steve and Thor's faces.

"Why?" Steve asked.

"Because she was actually really smart," Natasha explained. "And she realized that since they already thought she was stupid, if she acted like it, then they wouldn't worry about her, and they would say more in front of her because they didn't think she'd understand."

"Oh," Steve said, comprehension dawning in his eyes. "That _is_ smart. What did she learn?"

"She learned that the wizards were after a book. A book about dragon magic. 'Cause see, the dragons had this cave where there was all kinds of special magic stuff, and the wizards wanted to steal it for themselves. But they could never get in, because the dragons guarded it."

"Like what kind of stuff?" Steve wondered.

"Uh…" She didn't remember that detail from the book. "Magic jewels that you made crystal balls from, or water that made sick people better, and lots of diamonds and other jewels."

"Cool."

"So, the wizards wanted in there. And they found the book they were after, but no matter how stupid they thought the princess was, they couldn't just steal it in front of her. So they left, and the princess and the dragon talked about what they should do about it. The dragon decided to talk it over with the other dragons."

She paused to take a drink of her hot chocolate, trying to remember what came next. She knew she and Lila had finished the story, but right around this point, Cooper had come in and thrown a ball at Lila's head, and there had been some general chaos and rough-housing that pulled them off track. She might have to fudge it a little bit.

"I believe you have something on your face, Steve," Thor said. Steve had just taken a drink of his hot chocolate, and Natasha looked up and grinned at the sight of Steve with a blob of melted marshmallow on his nose.

Thor reached out a finger and swiped the marshmallow off his nose, held it up just long enough for Steve to see what it was, then licked the sticky treat off his finger.

"Hey!" Steve protested. "That's my marshmallow!"

"Not anymore," Thor chuckled, making a show of swallowing it down.

Steve tried to glare, but was unable to keep himself from smiling. He scooted closer to Natasha and cupped his mug a little more protectively. "I think Miss Natasha is waiting to go on with the story," he said with an awful lot of dignity for someone with a hot chocolate mustache and marshmallow residue on his nose.

Natasha smiled, shook her sleeve over her hand to wipe Steve's face, and continued. "So, while the dragons were talking to each other, they discovered that one of the other dragons had a book kind of like that first one, but it was missing. More wizards had come into the dragons' caves and taken it. The dragons got all upset and started arguing about what to do."

"The dragons argue a lot," Steve pointed out.

"Well, yeah," Natasha agreed. "But they're fire-breathing animals—they've got hot tempers."

Steve inclined his head, conceding the point.

"Now, the dragons and the wizards didn't get along, since stuff like this happened a lot, and several of the dragons decided they should go to war with the wizards."

"Ah ha!" Thor declared happily. "A thrilling tale of battle and magic!"

"Slow your roll, there, big guy," Natasha said with a smile. "The dragons had to get the dragon king to declare war. So they had to go find him first and tell him what all the wizards had done."

"Mm," Thor nodded. "Indeed. The king should always be the one to lead his people in battle or in peace."

"But, it took them a while to get a meeting set up with the king."

"Why?" Steve wondered.

"Court politics," Thor sighed, shaking his head. "It is truly the bane of any ruler."

Steve didn't look entirely sure what that meant, and Natasha smiled. "Well, being the king, he was awfully busy. So they had to wait until they could get a meeting with him."

"Oh. Okay." He took another drink of hot chocolate, getting marshmallow on his nose again, but swiping it off quickly and eating it himself before Thor could.

"So, the princess is back in the cave, right?" Natasha said, returning to their heroine. "The dragon is still off at the meeting, and it's late, and she's mopping and cleaning up after dinner when she hears something. So, she goes to investigate, taking her mop bucket with her—she didn't have any weapons or anything, but thought maybe she could whack someone with the bucket." She looked down at Steve. "That's another good lesson. You should always be ready to use what you have and improvise."

Steve nodded earnestly.

"So, she followed the noise into the library," Natasha went on. "And there was one of the wizards from that morning! He'd snuck back in and was trying to steal the book!"

Steve gasped at the rudeness and audacity of the villain.

"The princess told him to stop, and he turned around and grabbed his magic staff to cast a spell on her," Natasha said. Steve's eyes were wide, his hands clutched tightly against his bear, and even Thor was leaning in in anticipation. She smiled. "She didn't have anything to hide behind," she went on. "So she threw the bucket at the wizard, thinking she could hit his arm and at least make him miss with the spell."

"Did it work?" Steve asked when she paused for dramatic effect.

Natasha grinned. "It did. It worked even better than she thought it would. The bucket hit the wizard in the shoulder, and knocked his spell away from her. And the water from the bucket splashed all over him, and he was all mad and wet, and then…he started to melt!"

Steve gasped.

Thor laughed. "Of course! Like the Wicked Witch of the West!" He nodded satisfactorily.

"Huh?" Steve asked, looking up at Thor, confused. For a moment, Natasha was confused too, remembering Steve getting Fury's _Wizard of Oz_ reference on the helicarrier when they first met. But this was 1927 Steve, and that movie hadn't come out by then.

"It is common in Earth legends for evil magicians to be melted by water," Thor explained.

"Oh, okay," Steve said. He turned back to Natasha. "So, what happened after she melted him?"

"Um, well, the dragon came back," she said, thrown off a little by the way Thor put pop culture together. She supposed she should stop being surprised at this point. "They were going to go see the king the next morning, but when they got there, they found out the king dragon was dead!"

"Did the wizards kill him?" Steve asked suspiciously.

"They didn't know. It made sense that they would try, but the king had guards, and they said no wizards had come in; that he'd just been having breakfast and died."

"Most suspicious," Thor said. "It sounds to me as though some sort of poison was in play."

"Hmm," Steve pondered, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"So then the war with the wizards had to be put on hold," Natasha said. "The dragons had to get a new king first."

"Was there no heir to take his father's place?" Thor wondered.

Natasha shook her head. "Dragons don't work like that. They don't have royal family lines or anything. When one king dies, they have a contest to see who becomes the next king."

"Ah," Thor said. He nodded. "The strongest then becomes the ruler. I have seen some realms where it is thus."

"The way the dragon contest worked was, there was this big magic rock in the dragon caves. It was called the King's Stone, and it shook whenever you tried to pick it up. It would keep shaking and shaking until you couldn't hold it anymore. Except, for the dragon who was supposed to be the next king, it wouldn't shake at all. So, all the dragons would have to try to carry the stone, and the one who could carry it without dropping it would become the king."

"So, all the dragons went out to the place where the contest was happening," Natasha continued. "The princess was annoyed at having to stay at home, but her dragon friend left her a crystal ball so she could watch. She got kind of bored of watching dragons picking up and dropping the stone, though, so she got the crystal ball to start looking around, seeing what else she could see." She paused dramatically again.

"What did she see?" Steve demanded, when the silence had gone on too long.

Natasha fought down the urge to laugh at his enthusiasm. "She saw…the wizards!"

Steve and Thor both gasped.

"A whole bunch of them!" she continued. This story-telling thing was actually pretty fun, especially with eager listeners like these. "They had the books about the dragon cave, and they were casting spells over the contest."

"But why did they care about the dragon contest?" Steve wondered. His eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. "Unless…" he said slowly. "They wanted a certain dragon to win." He turned to look at Thor, their eyes widening as they met.

"It was a dragon that poisoned the king!" they said in unison, and Natasha snorted into her hot chocolate and had to get up to get a towel.

"The dragons have a traitor among them," Thor growled.

Natasha cleaned up her spilled hot chocolate and sat back down. Steve scooched back over next to her and wriggled his way under her arm. "What happened next?" he asked, blinking eager blue eyes up at her.

"Well, like you guys guessed, they were trying to rig the contest," Natasha said. "So the princess got all the buckets from the kitchen she could carry, filled them up with water, and did some of the magic she'd made her father's court magicians teach her to transport herself to where the wizards were. She started splashing her buckets around, getting as many wizards as she could and melting them. There were too many of them, though, and soon she was out of water, and there were still wizards around her, ready to throw spells at her."

"Oh no," Steve whispered.

"Fortunately, she and the wizards had made a lot of noise, so some of the dragon soldiers came over to investigate. They stopped the wizards before they could hurt the princess, and they arrested them all, and the princess, and took them to where the contest was."

"Why'd they arrest her?" Steve asked indignantly. "She stopped the wizards!"

"Yeah, but the dragon soldiers didn't know her, and they didn't know what was going on, so they just arrested everybody and decided to hang on to them until the new king got picked, and let the king figure it out," Natasha explained.

"Hm," Steve said, not pleased with this turn of events.

"By the time they got to the contest, though, everyone was cheering," Natasha continued. "One of the dragons had just been picked by the stone to be king, and so the soldiers marched the princess and the wizards up to the new king. And the new king turned out to be the dragon the princess lived with!"

"Yay!" Steve said, clapping his hands excitedly. "Wait," he said. "I thought that was a girl dragon. Wouldn't she be the queen instead?"

"Not for dragons," Natasha said remembering having the same thought when she and Lila reached that part of the book. "They just call the job 'king', whether it's a boy or a girl."

"Huh."

"Interesting," Thor said, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"So, since that dragon was the princess's friend, she listened to her, right?" Steve asked.

"Yep," Natasha agreed. "The dragon knew all the sneaky stuff the wizards had been doing, and after the princess told them what she'd found out, they realized the wizards had been working with one of the dragons—they would help that dragon become king, and that dragon would let them into the special caves with all the magic stuff."

"Who was the bad dragon?" Steve asked.

"The bad dragon was the one from the beginning of the story who wanted to eat the princess," Natasha said.

"I knew he was no good," Steve said.

She smiled. "Yep. He got turned into a frog, and the wizards were all banished from the dragon mountains forever."

"Good," Steve said, nodding emphatically.

"So then the nice dragon became the king," Natasha said. "And the princess was worried about what she was going to do, because she'd been cooking for the dragon and taking care of her, but now that she was the king, she would have servants and stuff to do that for her. But the dragon said that of course the princess could stay! She'd helped save the kingdom, and she'd been really brave to go out and take on the wizards all on her own. The dragon said someone as brave and smart as that should certainly stay around, but she shouldn't be cooking and cleaning. She made the princess one of her counselors, to help her make smart decisions as king."

"An excellent choice," Thor declared. "Bravery should be rewarded, and it is an intelligent king who surrounds himself—herself, rather—with wise counselors."

"Yep," Natasha agreed. "So the good dragon got to be king, and the princess got an interesting job where she got to use all the stuff she'd learned to help make a good kingdom."

"And they all lived happily ever after!" Steve declared.

"Yes, they did," Natasha said.

"An excellent tale," Thor said, grinning broadly.

"Yeah, it was really good," Steve agreed. He yawned and leaned against Natasha's shoulder. "I liked it."

"I'm glad," she said, ruffling his hair and feeling very proud of herself for managing to distract him from his worry and put that smile on his face. Before she had time to wonder what she should do next, she heard the sound of feet in the hallway.

"Bucky!" Steve exclaimed happily, looking over the back of the couch. Bucky, Sam and Wanda were coming out of the elevator, all uninjured, as promised. Steve dropped his bear on the couch and jumped up and ran to them.

"Hey, Stevie!" Bucky greeted, crouching down to catch Steve in a hug.

"You're back!" Steve said.

"Told you we would be," Bucky said with a smile. He pulled back and looked at him. "What are you still doing up?"

"Waitin' for you," Steve said, like it should have been obvious. "Miss Natasha was tellin' me a story."

"Really?" Bucky said, looking over at Natasha curiously.

"Uh huh! It was about a princess, and had dragons and wizards and everything!" Steve said.

"And, let me guess: she made you hot chocolate too?" Bucky asked.

"How did you know?" Steve wondered.

Bucky grinned. "Because when I left this morning, you didn't have a mustache," he said, swiping at Steve's face with his sleeve. Steve giggled and tried to duck away. "Go brush your teeth and wash that off your face, huh? Time for bed."

"Okay," Steve agreed. He gave Sam and Wanda a quick hug, welcoming them back, then hugged Thor and Natasha. "Thanks for the story, Miss Natasha," Steve said, smiling up from where he had his little arms wrapped around her waist. "It was fun. And it did make me feel better."

"I'm glad," Natasha said with a smile. She ruffled his hair again. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

"G'night." He hugged her again and ran off for his room.

"So, story time with Nat, huh?" Bucky asked with a smile.

"Shut up," Natasha complained good-naturedly. "Couldn't just let him mope around until you came back. And I'm not telling you the story," she added, raising a warning finger as Sam started to open his mouth.

Bucky chuckled. "Thanks for looking out for him."

"No problem," Natasha assured him. "We had fun."

Thor helped her clean up the dishes, and everyone dispersed. Natasha realized Steve had left his bear on the couch, so she picked it up and headed for the room he was sharing with Bucky. The door was open slightly, and the lights were low, and she peeked in to see Steve curled up in his bed, mumbling something sleepily as Bucky sat on the mattress beside him, rubbing a hand gently up and down his back. She smiled at the sweet simplicity of the scene, leaned in just enough to catch Bucky's eye and set the bear on the couch inside the door, then backed out. It _had_ been fun doing the story-telling thing tonight, though she didn't know that she'd make a habit of it. Steve made a pretty great audience, though. She could see herself letting him talk her into it again.

* * *

_Thor wasn't actually invited to this chapter, but he showed up at the end of the couch, and, well, who's going to kick Thor out? He's a sweetie._

_I don't know how many of you recognized it, but the story Nat was telling (and kind of butchering a little) was Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede. It's part one of a YA series about an unconventional princess and was one of my favorites growing up._

_Up next, Bucky and Steve get an unexpected visitor, and the mystery of Steve's tinification is solved._


	18. They Grow Up So Fast, Don't They?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious visitor appears, and Steve and Bucky get a midnight crash course on the workings of the universe before Steve gets big again.

* * *

Bucky woke up to a rush of cool air, opening his eyes to see Steve lifting his blanket up and clambering up onto his mattress. "Hey, Stevie," he yawned. "Whatcha doing?"

Steve wormed his way under Bucky's arm before he replied. "I had a bad dream," he whispered. He wriggled a little more to get closer and nuzzled his face into Bucky's chest.

"Yeah?" Bucky asked sympathetically. "Scary one?"

He nodded.

"Okay," Bucky said. He cinched his arm more securely around Steve. "Well, I gotcha now. You're safe."

"I know," Steve said softly, and something warm purred happily in Bucky's chest at the trust in his sleepy little voice.

"Go on back to sleep, buddy," Bucky said, patting his back. "I gotcha."

"Mmm," Steve hummed, already fading out. His breathing evened out, slow and peaceful in sleep, and Bucky followed suit, his eyes falling heavily closed.

A couple of hours later, Bucky woke up again, completely and instantly this time, sharp bells of warning going off in his head that something wasn't right. He sat up quickly, snatching up the knife under his pillow. He was aware of Steve grunting, "Mmf," unhappily as the sudden motion made him fall off of Bucky's back and face-plant into the mattress, but he ignored it for the moment, scanning the room.

For a moment, there was nothing, just the same darkness that had been there all night, empty but for him and Steve, and quiet but for the hum of air in the vents above. But for reasons he couldn't articulate, the energy of the room was off. Something was happening.

"W's goin' on?" Steve mumbled sleepily.

Before Bucky could answer, a spot of light appeared in the air, orange and steady and glowing, like a flame. "Get behind me," Bucky said, grabbing Steve's arm and yanking him around so that he was between Bucky and the wall.

The light started to move, drawing a thin circle of fire in the air. "What's that?" Steve whispered nervously.

"I'm not sure, but stay behind me," Bucky said, gripping the hilt of his knife tightly. He didn't know what was happening, but he recognized that light. It looked exactly like the portals from that warehouse—the ones that made the dragon creatures appear out of thin air. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., portal guy's back; call everyone else."

The A.I. did not respond, and the line of fire completed its circle. "There's no need to worry with that, Sergeant Barnes," a calm, feminine voice replied. A woman stepped out of the circle in the air. "I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"Uh huh," Bucky said skeptically, wrapping his metal arm a little more protectively around Steve and making sure he was all the way behind him. She was tall, thin and graceful, with a shaved head, almost translucently pale skin, and yellow robes that brushed the floor. She was smiling serenely. There was actually something nice and calm about her, but considering that she'd just opened a hole in the air and stepped through into his bedroom in the middle of the night, to say nothing of the fact that she seemed to have disabled F.R.I.D.A.Y. (and the security systems that came with her), Bucky wasn't buying it. "Sure," he said. "You just opened a hole in space into my room at three in the morning for, what, the view?"

She chuckled softly as the circle blinked out of existence behind her. "Well, there certainly isn't much of one right now, is there?" She waved a hand and the lights came on. "There," she said, folding her hands in front of her. "That's better."

"Who the hell are you?" Bucky demanded, eyeing the distance from the bed to the door and trying to gauge if he could grab Steve up and get around her and out the door before she tried anything.

"I am the Sorcerer Supreme," she said. "I and others like me master the mystic arts to protect this world from darkness." She smiled. "Something like your Avengers, simply on another plane of existence."

"Assuming I buy this whole wizard thing you have going on," Bucky said. "Protecting this world from darkness? Really? How exactly do flying alien fish-dragons trying to attack a city accomplish that? Not to mention what you did to Steve."

The woman's smile fell. "You're right, of course." She bit her lip thoughtfully, as if deciding how much to say. "The incident seven weeks ago was committed by one of our number. However, he turned his back on our ways, and stole from our sanctuary, seeking to use his knowledge and power for selfish gain."

Bucky stared, waiting for her to go on. It was easy to pin a problem on someone who wasn't there. He was going to need more than that.

"His summoning of the dragons was an attempt to gain leverage for something he wanted," she explained. "What happened to Captain Rogers was an accident."

"An accident?" Bucky asked incredulously. "How do you 'accidentally' focus your magic green glowy energy on someone and turn them back into a kid?"

"Perhaps I should have said it was not his initial goal," she said. "The Avengers showing up at what he had hoped to be a negotiation with me was not what he intended. What he did to Captain Rogers was a diversion to allow himself time to escape."

Steve was peeking curiously over Bucky's shoulder to watch the exchange, though his little fists were clenched anxiously in Bucky's shirt. Bucky didn't release his hold on him, but he patted his back in assurance. Assurance of what, he wasn't sure, because he still didn't understand what the hell was going on, but he wasn't going to let anything else happen to Steve.

"So what do you want?" Bucky asked.

"To make amends," she said simply. "It took longer than I care to admit to track our wayward colleague down. He is in custody now, however, and will not be causing anyone any more trouble. We have spent some time repairing the damage he did, and I have now come to finish it. Captain Rogers is the last piece of the puzzle."

It took Bucky a second to figure out what she meant. "You're here to undo what he did to Steve?"

"I am."

"Why?" Not that this wasn't what they'd been trying to do since the day it happened, but it wasn't as though Bucky had any reason to trust this woman.

"To return the universe to its proper course."

Well, that was a noble, if vague-sounding reason. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"I suppose you don't," she allowed, tilting her head to one side. "Though the fact that we are having this conversation at all proves something, I think. Had I meant you harm, I would have done it already." And _that_ , Bucky didn't have any trouble believing.

"You came here to make me big again?" Steve asked, like he was making sure he understood what was going on.

"That's right," she said. She smiled warmly, beckoning with one hand. "Why don't you come out where I can see you?"

Bucky's grip on Steve instinctively tightened, though Steve didn't seem inclined to move anyway.

She sighed. "Sergeant Barnes, this must be done."

"Oh, must it?" Bucky asked. He pointed at her with his knife. "I don't care what kind of mystical, magical powers you have; you're going to have to give me a hell of a lot more before I let you lay so much as a finger on him."

"I commend your desire to protect him," she said. "But I must do this. The universe demands it."

Again with the universe and the vaguely noble-sounding sentiments. Was this woman capable of just giving a straight answer? "And what does the universe know?" he demanded.

She made a gesture with her hands, and little dials and pieces on the pendant hanging from her neck started to move, sliding aside to reveal a glowing green jewel. Steve gasped. Bucky shifted a little farther back, pressing Steve closer to the wall. The green light emanating from the jewel was something else Bucky had seen before—that was the same light that had surrounded Steve in that warehouse and made him small.

"This is the Time Stone," she said. "It allows me to see the flow of time. Past, present, and future. Sometimes the future is in flux—there are fewer things than one might suppose that are written in stone." She threw out a hand like she was tossing something up into the air, and suddenly there was a glowing orange web hovering above them, filling the room. The threads rippled and swayed, some staying in place, and some weaving in and out to create even more complex patterns. She pointed to one end of the web, where the filaments didn't seem able to move but were straining, stretching dangerously thin. "But right now, the strands that weave the future are starting to fray." She pointed at Steve, the web vanishing as she dropped her hand. "The universe requires Captain America to keep them intact."

Steve's jaw dropped open. "Me?" he whispered.

"Yes," she said. "You. But I'm afraid the universe doesn't have time to wait for you to grow into the hero waiting inside. We're going to need you sooner than that."

The room was quiet for a minute. "Okay," Steve said softly.

Bucky's eyebrows flew up in surprise. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he exclaimed. "No, Stevie, this—" Not that he disagreed that the world needed Captain America, but…Sorcerer Lady talked a good game, but she had yet to say or do anything concrete enough to make Bucky trust her. There were still way too many questions here, and he couldn't help feeling like she was taking advantage of Steve's willingness to do the right thing and his trusting nature. He turned around and took Steve's shoulders in his hands. "Steve, you really need to think about this."

Steve looked scared, but he shrugged. "What's there to think about? If the whole universe needs this an' this is what I can do to help, then, well, whether or not I want to doesn't really matter, does it?"

Skeptical of the sorcerer though he was, Bucky couldn't help smiling proudly at that declaration. "You really are a hero, aren't you?" he said softly, running a hand down one side of Steve's hair. "I just…" He looked back to where the woman was waiting patiently, then back at Steve. "I don't want anything to happen to you. I don't know if I trust her."

"I know," Steve said. He looked at her for a long minute over Bucky's shoulder. "But I do. I'm not sure why, but…I do."

Bucky sighed heavily. The kicker was, even though his head was vehemently fighting it, he did too, though he couldn't have said why. He didn't like it, but he believed her.

"Besides," Steve went on, smiling bravely at Bucky. "It'll be okay. 'Cause I'm just getting big—I'm not going anywhere. You said your friend was Steve Rogers, no matter what size, right?"

"Right," Bucky said softly.

Steve's smile widened. "Then it's okay. 'Cause we'll still be friends. I'll just remember more things. But I'll be here with you. I'm here 'til the end of the line too."

Bucky grabbed him into a hug, and Steve hugged him back tightly. "Okay," he whispered. He cradled one hand around Steve's little head. Assuming this woman was telling the truth, he was excited to get Big Steve back, but he was going to miss this little guy. But, like he'd said before, Steve was Steve no matter which way you looked at him—that brave, self-sacrificial little idiot that meant the world to Bucky.

"I love you, Bucky," Steve whispered, and there was a tremor in his voice that told Bucky just how scared he was, that he needed to make sure Bucky knew that in case this went wrong.

Bucky hugged him tighter. "I know," he said. He pressed a soft kiss to his hair. "I love you too," he assured him. Whatever happened next, that brotherhood between them was something the universe was never going to be able to change. He pulled back to look at him, smiling warmly. "I'll see you on the other side, okay?" he said, as reassuringly as he could manage, and he saw a little bit of confidence slip back into Steve's eyes.

"Okay," Steve said. He flung his arms around his neck one more time, squeezed tightly, then turned and slid off the bed. "Okay," he said to the waiting sorcerer. "I'm ready."

"Thank you," she said, smiling encouragingly. "Come and stand over here." She gestured to a space in front of her.

Steve shuffled over. "Is this…um…Is this going to hurt?" he asked quietly. Bucky had been wondering the same thing—another reason he'd been so worried to let Steve accept. He still remembered the way Steve had screamed the first time.

"No," she said, and she must have caught Bucky's incredulous eyebrow because she went on to explain. "This Stone can manipulate Time. When this was done to you, your personal timeline was reversed, reverting you back to a child. That in and of itself is not particularly difficult for one with our abilities. But the man who did this to you was no master of the Stone, and he was in a desperate hurry. He did not possess the skill or the time to do it as he should have." She smiled warmly. "I have both. While this may feel strange, I promise you there will be no pain."

Steve didn't look like he'd entirely understood everything she'd said, but he got the last part, and he nodded.

"Let's begin," the woman said. She made a sharp gesture with one hand, and the stone inside her necklace started glowing brightly. Green tendrils of light started at Steve's feet and slowly wound their way up and around his body. Steve's eyes widened in trepidation as they encircled him and started to lift him off the floor, but he stayed still. Bucky's fists were clenched nervously in the bedsheets as he prayed that he hadn't made a mistake in trusting her. This was just how it had started last time.

A ring of green light appeared around her left wrist, and she slowly began rotating it, manipulating her fingers back and forth in a complicated motion. At the same time, a ring of orange light appeared around her right wrist, and she started drawing little circles in the air with that hand, circles that had strange symbols inside.

Steve gasped and started moving like something had fallen down the back of his shirt and he was trying to shake it out. He didn't appear to be in pain, though, and Bucky couldn't help watching in fascination as his torso started stretching, his arms and legs slowly getting longer. What she'd been saying about Steve's personal timeline must have really been true, because he wasn't growing from little kid into Captain America, but into the skinny little adult he'd been before the serum.

Suddenly, they hit what must have been 1943 and Dr. Erskine and the serum, and everything just started… _expanding_. Bucky knew from Steve that Project: Rebirth had hurt like hell, and so he was grateful that the Sorcerer Supreme was keeping her promise and her weird little orange circle things were keeping Steve from feeling any pain. He was also very grateful, on Steve's behalf, that whatever she was doing seemed to be growing the clothes he was wearing right along with him—Steve wasn't ripping through them, or choking inside that little shirt collar, and he wouldn't be left lying naked on the floor when she was done. She was irritatingly cryptic, but at least she was thoughtful.

Steve stopped growing and changing, but she kept him hovering there a little longer, her hands still moving, like she was making sure she had gotten him all the way to twenty-nine or ninety-six, or however old he actually was now. The orange light disappeared, the tendrils of green started to uncoil, and Steve slowly sank back to the floor. He staggered a little bit when he landed, like he'd forgotten where the center of balance was for this much larger body, but he righted himself quickly. He looked down at himself like he was making sure of what he was seeing, then back up at her.

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled and inclined her head serenely. "You're welcome. Allow me to apologize once again for the behavior of my colleague. You can rest assured he won't be doing anything like that again." Her smile softened. "And thank _you_ , Captain. Both for what you've done for this world, and for your willingness to do it."

She shifted to look around Steve and catch Bucky's eye. "You've handled this well, Sergeant Barnes. The world needs you too, you know." Before either of them could figure out what to say, she opened up a portal, stepped back through it, and vanished.

For a moment, the room was quiet, the two of them standing there and taking in everything that had just happened. Then Bucky laughed, shoved himself to his feet, and flung his arms around Steve. "Welcome back, Steve," he said.

Steve returned the embrace and pounded him on the back. "Good to be back, Buck. Good to be back."

Bucky pulled back and looked him up and down. "Are you okay? I mean, she said it wasn't going to hurt you, but…"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Steve assured him. "It felt… _really_ weird, but it didn't hurt at all."

"I guess stretching out like that would be pretty strange."

"Actually, I barely noticed that part," Steve said. "It was mostly inside my head—like my life was a movie playing on fast forward. All these new memories and things were exploding into my head so fast I could barely keep up."

"But you remember everything now?"

"Right up to that warehouse and the weird green light." Steve looked down and scuffed his foot along the carpet, his cheeks coloring slightly. "I, uh, remember after that too. Being a kid and all."

Bucky looked at him quizzically. Was he embarrassed by that?

Steve looked up and caught the question in his eyes and sighed. "I was building castles out of cardboard boxes and coloring with crayons and running around pretending to be an airplane. Yes, it's embarrassing, alright?"

Bucky chuckled. "Okay, first of all, it wasn't your fault. Second of all, I guarantee you no one is going to think now that you're big again, you're still going to want a bedtime story. And third of all, it was adorable."

Steve kept blushing, but he smiled a little at that. "Is it weird that it was kind of fun? I mean, Little Me understood as much as he could, but he really didn't grasp how serious the whole thing was, and, believe me, I am so, _so_ glad to be back, but…it was kind of nice for a little while."

Bucky smiled. He knew where Steve was coming from. Steve didn't have the easiest life, and there was no way to unplug from it completely. This really took the weight of the world off his shoulders for a while. "No, I get it," he assured him. "It was almost…restful."

Steve smiled, appreciating that he understood. "And, hey, you guys were great, by the way. Especially you. I mean, I…" He shook his head. "I was just a kid. I had this whole new century and way of life just thrown in my face, and you were…I felt safe with you."

Bucky smiled. "I'm glad. And you've been like my kid brother since you were three anyway, so, you know, I've had practice."

Steve laughed. "Yes, you have. Sorry if I was kind of a handful."

"Are you kidding?" Bucky teased. "You actually listened to me this time around. Seven whole weeks, and the closest you came to getting in a fight was when you were sick and argued about not wanting to eat dinner." He smiled. "This was practically a vacation."

Steve laughed again. "Thank you," he said, serious now, but still smiling. "Really, I…" He clapped Bucky warmly on the shoulder. "Thank you."

"Anytime," Bucky replied, smiling fondly. "Anytime." He grinned mischievously. "So, you keeping the jammies?" he asked, nodding at Steve's now adult-sized dinosaur pajamas.

Steve blushed again, laughed, and shook his head. "I'll think about it. They _are_ comfortable, but if I end up keeping them, Tony will never, ever know that."

Later that morning at breakfast, there was all kinds of commotion over Steve being back, and he had to explain things several times since no one woke up at the same time, but eventually it settled and things started getting back to normal. Actually, it was surprising just how fast things got back to normal—in some ways, it was almost like it had never happened at all. There were a few things that stuck around, though, although no one ever actually put that into words, but they were…they were good things.

Stark still spent a lot of time sequestered away down in his lab, but Steve went down there more than he used to, just to check in and catch up. Bucky didn't know what they talked about, but some of those bricks Ultron had knocked out of the foundation of their relationship seemed to be back in place.

Afternoons where there wasn't a mission or anything important going on, it wasn't unusual to find Steve and Thor drinking tea and watching Chip and Joanna, engaged in a good-natured debate about the merits of tile versus hardwood flooring, rustic beams, open-floor concepts, and cabinet sizes. Steve still wasn't a fan of shiplap.

Natasha spent more time in the common area these days, being around people instead of off by herself somewhere. Wanda talked and laughed a little more freely, and seemed to be coming out of her shell. Sam was back to his morning runs with Steve, but now they would stop on their way back and have breakfast and talk. On mornings they didn't run, Steve would usually work his way into the kitchen to make breakfast with Clint. (Bucky wasn't positive, but he thought he heard the taco song one morning.)

All of Little Steve's clothes and toys had gone to charity…with the exception of Franklin the Second, who Bucky noticed tucked away on a shelf in Steve's room. He didn't say anything about it, but it felt nice that Steve had felt touched enough by his gift to hang on to it. And on nights when Bucky had a nightmare bad enough to bring Steve running from across the hall, neither of them said anything about the fact that the bear occasionally ended up on Bucky's nightstand, within reach if he felt like snaking an arm out from behind the wall of pillows Steve would build around him after he got him calmed down.

And if the nightmare was bad enough that Steve needed to stay after Bucky fell asleep, he would either curl up at the foot of the bed or stretch out on the floor beside it, which was just as well. Little Steve as a sleepy octopus was cute, but if Big Steve did it, it probably would have crushed him.

* * *

_And so, we come to the end. I had a great time writing this, and I was kind of amazed that so many people enjoyed it so enthusiastically. You guys' support was awesome, and it meant an awful lot to me. Thank you!_

_As to what's next...I've got some Steggy stuff that's been simmering on the back burner for a while. Some of it's not ready yet, but some is, so that might be popping up before too long. And, of course, the Norseman's Cube sequel is always being worked on. And who knows what random fluffy ideas the muse will get in the meantime-that's where this one came from, and I'd say it worked out pretty well. :)_

_Thanks again! You guys are the best, and I'll see you soon!_


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